<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>|free the hearts and rust the chains| by littlekaracan</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862090">|free the hearts and rust the chains|</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlekaracan/pseuds/littlekaracan'>littlekaracan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>|snow on red sands| [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergence - Post-Order 66, Chapter Warnings in Notes, Depersonalization, Established codywan, M/M, Slow Burn (in a way?), Some Fluff, Suicide mention, The Clones' Chips Deteriorate, This Is The Rebel!Obi-Wan and Deserter!Cody AU, graphic descriptions of death, heavy angst with a happy ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:40:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>46,437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlekaracan/pseuds/littlekaracan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There aren't many clones left in the Imperial Army. The ones that stay alive do so through methodical obeisance, resembling droids more than people.</p><p>Occasionally, some go rogue. There are stories of clones blowing up entire Star Destroyers for the Generals they killed themselves, stories of them awaiting execution and spitting curses at the officers for depriving the Galaxy of what should've become peace, stories of quiet, sobbed apologies in their sleep directed at the long-dead Jedi. Such clones, according to the Imperial Command, are not to be trusted.</p><p>Zhade-Ran doesn't trust her two bunkmates. Although perhaps not for the reasons she should.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Boil &amp; CC-2224 | Cody, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Original Character(s) &amp; Other(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>|snow on red sands| [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2039798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>560</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. We Have Forgot Forgetting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>thank you very much for checking out the fic! the first chapter is admittedly a bit oc-heavy, i tried to make it as interesting and world-buildingly as i could, but alas! there's less focus on them in the following ones. the codywan comes along a bit slowly as well, but i promise it's building up to it, because i love The Bois!<br/>this fic is technically already written as i did nanowrimo on it, but i have a lot of editing to do, therefore i'll post updates every thursday! :&gt; thank you again, very very much. if it gets too heavy for you at any point, please prioritize safety !! happy reading!!</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Empire is not kind to any of its children.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>specific warnings for this chapter are as follows:<br/>-suicidal ideation<br/>-panic attack<br/>-background character death<br/>-depersonalization</b>
</p><p> </p><p>please heed those!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If the Galaxy hadn’t gone to absolute shit seven years ago, perhaps TK-6836 would’ve been a halfway-presentable bounty hunter by now. A Mandalorian, even, like her father before her, if she was lucky enough. Maybe her father himself would still be out there somewhere for her to find, and she would go on a journey for her roots. Maybe she could fall in love, or some other type of nonsense she’d seen on the few holojournals she’d come across. </p><p>But alas, the Galaxy <em>had</em> gone to shit, and now TK-6836 was a lone soldier among millions upon millions of identical others. A faceless woman in a sea of her own reflections. She took some comfort from the familiarity of the helmet on her head, perhaps, but it was also so sickeningly gray and unloved, so painfully the same, sometimes all she wanted was to grind it into the pavement with her boots. Besides, no matter how much time she spent in it, clogging the visor with her breath, it kept its sharp, nose-tickling smell, like it was fresh from the factories every single damn time. </p><p>Then again, she couldn’t complain, really. The credits she had were enough for occasional entertainment between assignments, and the military supplied her with rations and a roof over her head. She had no particular aversion toward the Rebellion nor any great affection for the Empire, but she did fight for it, watched her bunkmates kick their buckets for it, and felt secure within nevertheless. Killing wasn’t foreign to her, it never had been. It was her family's way of life, and she was, after all, her father's daughter. But the Empire was what ultimately raised her, and eventually doing its bidding became as easy as breathing.</p><p>Not that she ever liked it much, anyway, but good soldiers followed orders, and oh, TK-6836 would be a great one, if only to make sure those she’d known outside the army didn’t suffer for any disobedience from her part. The Empire liked doing things like that. To ensure none of their soldiers stepped out of line. To their credit, it was highly effective.</p><p>The resentment for her number came late, later than most, at least. Younger stormtroopers had one of two fates laid out for them - eat their blaster after realizing that they were actively committing unforgivable atrocities, or harden their skin and pretend not to notice the suffering they were causing. But TK-6836 had always sought her own choices in life, so she chose the third - to spare herself the thought and lie in wait for the right time.</p><p>But, if it never came, she would’ve been fine simply living out her days as a Stormtrooper, whatever kind of person that made her. Perhaps she would've risen through the ranks, she had both the capability and conviction.</p><p>Unfortunately - or fortunately, from a certain point of view - the right time galloped past her, calling her name, inviting a chase. And TK-6836, never one to give away an opportunity when she saw it, followed.</p><p>The day she found her father’s helmet on a spike on some dust-ball planet (unmistakable by the markings she’d made on it herself as a wee girl, clapping her dye-covered palm over the edges of the visor) was the day TK-6836 died. There was no noise, no yelp, no scream. She took a breath, and the Empire was everywhere, suddenly. In the air around her, in the space above her, in the ground below her. Wretched, disloyal and ungrateful for all she’d done for it. She had hoped it’d keep her father safe, somehow. It was part of her deal, in the recruitment. </p><p>It was foolish to think, of course, that the Empire would see a helmet fit for a Devaronian man and hesitate.</p><p>It was foolish to think the Empire would ever hesitate. </p><p>But she had been young, of course, and had gladly thrown away her name for an aesthetically-pleasing number, shiny plastoid armour and some semblance of confidence in her future.</p><p>But it was here, seven years later, that the bubbling hatred for her number, for this TK-6836 that she’d been playing for the past half of the decade, at last crossed the final line, and the distant, dutiful no-name soldier was buried deep within her for nobody but her to shape and hide behind as was necessary. But she would no longer be of the Empire, if the Empire was not willing to uphold its own end of the deal. It was a very simple lesson she’d learned back when she was a child, even - when someone did not love you, you did not love them back. And the Empire harboured very little love for its army, its seas of white, its children who fought and died for it every single day for years.</p><p>That day, Zhade-Ran took her father’s helmet off the forgotten, sand-polished spike, pressed her forehead against its cold abandoned form, locking her and the last remains of him in a final Keldabe, and walked away a different woman.</p><p>Or, well, a woman, a person, in the first place. But it was a start she would learn to cherish instead of mourn.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The only reason Zhade-Ran didn’t immediately run from the Empire was rather small. No, well, at least he was shorter than her - pale and a little bit orange. The man, too, wore a helmet, lekku tied behind his head and brought back to be secured in front of it like a nice little scarf. That's the only image she had in her head upon seeing him helmetless for the first time. Not only did it fit under the armour, but, judging by as much as he told her, it was not uncomfortable in the slightest, either.</p><p>That was nice. Not all Stormtroopers had the luxury of feeling comfortable in their armor.</p><p>She coaxed a name out of him eventually. Taddea was younger than her when he joined the Empire’s military ranks, too young, even in her skeptical opinion. In return, the Empire had promised to keep his family safe. His parents and five sisters, back on Ryloth, where the sun was hot but the bombshells that rained eternally were hotter. Thousands of Twi'lek Stormtroopers were admitted during those days, believing promises of the Empire ceasing the war on their home planet.</p><p>And Taddea was too young and too honest to see past those promises. </p><p>“I’m the oldest,” he’d told her one night, flashing a grin. “My parents could only send me. But I’m enough, and they can’t touch the rest while I’m still alive.”</p><p>Zhade-Ran took one look at the hopeless Twi’lek kid, and knew he was getting hurt sooner or later. </p><p>She also knew she liked him. She heard herself in him when he spoke of his parents, she thought of her father and the cold press of his helmet against her overheated skin, and she decided little Taddea was hers, now. Hers to protect, as she had nobody else, anyway. Little vod’ika. <a href="#vod" id="vodback" name="vodback"><sup>1</sup></a></p><p>She took blaster bolts for him; and he tried doing the same for her. She’d talk to him before raids, when his hands couldn’t stop shaking, and she’d speak with kindness that itself sounded foreign on her tongue; and he’d walk out of the barracks to join her on platforms on those bad nights, dangling his feet off the edge, and drawl on and on and on about pointless things until her eyes focused again and she’d start stifling laughter.</p><p><em>Mine now,</em> she thought, once, as he bumped his shoulder against hers accidentally, nearly knocking her down. “You’re fine,” she replied to his endless stream of quick apologies, waving a hand. <em>Mine, now. That how buir felt? </em><a href="#buir" id="buirback" name="buirback"><sup>2</sup></a></p><p>
  <em>Doesn’t matter. Mine, now. </em>
</p><p>Nevertheless, she shouldn’t have been surprised. When he came back one day with his hands quivering again and his finger on the trigger of his blaster, idly poking out in a very worrying direction. When he fell onto his bunk and began choking back tears. They all cried, sometimes - and usually, a comrade wouldn’t be there to help them bounce back up. They had to do it themselves, because they had to go on, or they’d outlive their use. </p><p>Zhade-Ran, though, being, of course, a Responsible and Good Imperial Trooper, concerned about the wellbeing of another soldier of the Empire, went to crouch next to her friend. With gentle gloved fingers she took the blaster out of his hand and intertwined them over his knee, settling into a more comfortable position on the floor. The bunks were, after all, not that much softer.</p><p>“Tell me,” she said, and she was just a little more familiar with the gentle hum her voice could shift into in consolation.</p><p>He raised his blue eyes at her, turning away from his blaster, nails poking through the tips of the gloves from where he’d dug it into the plastoid over his thighs.</p><p>“They killed them,” he answered, finally, getting through half a sentence before trailing off weakly. “All of them. Bombed the entire region off-- off the surface. Called it a -" Now she saw a small tear-stained notice between his fingers, half-ripped up. "- a, a necessary sacrifice. To send the Rebels a message. A <em>message</em>. My… My poor sisters, they, they--..." He coughed, forcing shallow wheezes through his teeth.</p><p>"Breathe," she told him, watching as his eyes widened and narrowed, glistening with tears of disbelief. She took his hand and pressed it to her chest, slowly drawing in air, exaggerating the rise and fall of her diaphragm. "Breathe as I breathe. With me. Focus."</p><p>"Kriff," he whispered, and fell forward, digging his face into her neck. She took what she was given, raising her free hand to brush it against the back of his neck. </p><p>"That's about right," she agreed quietly, feeling his quivering hand as his breathing gradually slowed down. Still, his other hand was gripping her blacks hard.</p><p>"I don't understand. They had promised. They had <em>sworn</em>.”</p><p>“Nothing is sacred to the Empire,” Zhade-Ran stated calmly. But Taddea remembered his parents and five sisters, and that meant they would live on. As she remembered her father. “It doesn’t care about us. The oaths they swore to us have been fraudulent and never meant to be kept.” She leaned to her side, fitting against him, cupping his face with one hand, another still on his. “You see it now.”</p><p>“They should’ve run,” he managed just before his voice died, his throat closing up. A lekku wrapped around Zhade-Ran’s hand. “They should’ve - All of them - “</p><p>“Running wouldn’t have saved them,” she answered easily, rubbing a continuous circle over his cheekbone softly. “My father tried to run. The Empire is a skilled huntress.” </p><p>"Your father?" He was silent, then, for a minute. And then, even as he looked like he was going to collapse onto himself, he managed, "I'm sorry."</p><p>"I remember him, therefore he lives on," she said reflexively. "And so do your people." She wished, now, that she could remember the phrase in Mando'a. </p><p><em>Any</em> phrase in Mando'a. Anything that wasn't hello, goodbye, please and thank you, a few titles and a now-useless knowledge of how the language worked in its most intrinsic forms, a beautiful scar sealed within her bones.</p><p>She wished she could at least recall the Remembrances. Or entertain herself with the Riduurok, the potential it held.<a href="#rid" id="ridback" name="ridback"><sup>3</sup></a></p><p>But it was all irrelevant, now. She had Taddea to take care of, and he nodded in acknowledgement and said no more for a while. Not until his tears dried and he let go of her glove.</p><p>“I think,” he spoke, then, his voice run raw, staring at something and nothing at all, “I want to go out. To one of the Edges. Like you do.”</p><p>She knew it, the feeling. Of not knowing how to mourn or to grieve. Of wanting at least the sensation of falling, the illusion of freedom. It was there, standing by the Edges - not in the presence of a Sith Lord, not in a blazing ship, not even in a battlefield - was where the line between life and death was thinnest. Where she thought she could, if she just listened hard enough, hear her father's voice - if only to scold her.</p><p>But Taddea didn't need to know this feeling.</p><p>“No,” she told him, words firm and final. She gestured to his side, to the rest of the small bunk. “Not tonight. Move. We’re going to sleep.”</p><p>Even as he gave her a confused glance, he shifted, and she climbed in next to him. “You know I won’t be able to.”</p><p>“Rephrasal. We’re going to cuddle, and you’re going to be gross and cry into my glove the entire night, and then maybe I’ll find something comforting to say in the morning,” she clarified, dragging the blanket out from underneath him. He was very light.</p><p>Taddea sniffled, giving her a small, sad smile. “I guess you’re right.”</p><p>“I’m always right, vod’ika. You’d best remember that.” Zhade-Ran pulled him closer, draping the cloth over the two of them with a free hand, ordering his lekku as he was too out of it to. “And if you want to talk, talk. It’s not any regular pain, but it’s not like anyone understands, do they? Pain is pain, they say, yeah?”</p><p>“It isn’t,” he murmured into her chest, and she nodded. </p><p>“It isn’t.”</p><p>By the morning Zhade-Ran knew, if unwillingly, every one of his sisters’ favourite colours. She knew exactly what the room he slept in used to look like and who he shared it with. She knew his mother wouldn’t have liked her, but his father would’ve made an effort to, perhaps. And sometimes he’d go quiet, fall into thought. Somehow, she figured out it would be her time to talk. And so by the morning Taddea knew what the title of “vod’ika” he’d been gifted with meant, he knew the basic implications of armour types in Mandalorian culture, and just an inkling of her own regrets. She stopped before saying she wished she could've been there. </p><p>And in the morning, when he finally fell asleep, exhausted from crying and talking, she cupped the back of his head gently and kissed him on the forehead, and murmured, “So we run away from the Empire. How about that. Join the Rebellion, if you want. We know many things that could help them, you know.”</p><p>The bunk above them gave a wail as its inhabitant sat up, newly awoken, and Zhade-Ran subconsciously cradled Taddea closer to herself. </p><p>“And these old tailings,” she whispered, listening as the clone in the upper bunk stifled a yawn. “They aren’t exactly capable of stopping us.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Fine. <em>Fine</em>.</p><p>There was another problem with running from the Empire - running from the barracks, even.</p><p>The problem was affectionately nicknamed Twenty-Four. That, and his little friend who hadn't even spoken to them enough for Zhade-Ran to know his number. </p><p>It would have been hilarious if it hadn't been sad. They'd been sharing quarters for right about a year, at that point.</p><p>Clone troopers were obsolete, now, fit only to train younger Stormtroopers and then get shipped off on missions that will inevitably end in their deaths. This was fine.</p><p>However, Zhade-Ran and Taddea had found themselves in a squad of four with two of such - Twenty-Four and Co., so to speak, a pair of mostly identical clone troopers who seemed to be little more than walking security cameras for higher-ups. This was not fine.</p><p>They were diligent. Ever-present, inescapable. Their deep-set dark eyes tracing every soldier's every move like anyone could just lunge at them.</p><p>That had happened, before, though nobody knew exactly how it ended. But it wouldn't have been unwarranted; the clones did not have a good reputation in the Imperial Army. Too ruthless even for the average Stormtrooper, freakishly content with being led to die and leading others to the same fate with a blank face. Barely even--</p><p>Barely even people. It was as if they had a hivemind deciding for them how to behave. They got up like clockwork, fired their blasters precisely as one, spoke little, if only to reprimand their siblings-in-arms, killed shamelessly - each other, if need be - never showing remorse or vulnerability, never late, never imperfect.</p><p>Twenty-Four and Company, both named in jest by Taddea, were no different. Zhade-Ran didn't even much like calling them by anything else but their numbers - it made them seem human; and whatever they were, human wasn't it. They shared bunk spaces, divided food on missions, sometimes exchanged a few words, but she had a suspicion that, if ordered to, the two men would easily blast each other dead and lose no sleep over it.</p><p>So, the fact that Zhade-Ran knew the scarred clone's number to call him by was already an achievement. He responded to the few times Taddea had playfully dubbed him "Twenty-Four" with no witty response, no nickname in return, no reaction at all - as if he didn't care what he was addressed as in the slightest. And Company hardly looked their way, either, if it wasn't to hand over a flask of water on some desert planet or to pass constant orders.</p><p>Yes, well, it was no wonder Zhade-Ran was of the opinion that clones could all kriff off and do something else with their lives, but that was the joke: they couldn't. Again, nobody was sure why. Maybe they just were like that, born with one purpose to serve from the start, a theory which would perhaps gather some pity from Zhade-Ran and sadden Taddea greatly. Or maybe they were their own men that had chosen the path of betrayal, moving up from serving the exterminated Jedi to - what? Plain white helmets and an Empire that didn't give a crawling kriff about them?</p><p>Either way, the clones unsettled Taddea and frustrated Zhade-Ran. Something wasn't right, and neither of them were that sure they wanted to know what it was. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There was hope.</p><p>Because, eventually, Zhade-Ran figured the clones were getting <em>too</em> old. Oh, don't get it wrong, they were still as prim and proper as Stormtroopers could be, but Taddea had a <em>wonderful</em> ability to damn near sense when someone was in distress, and had shared this with Zhade-Ran with a small giddy smile on his face - she wasn't sure whether the expression worried her or brought a grin to her face as well. The two men had clearly either caught something or were just getting worn.</p><p>She began noticing it too, then. Their gloves, wrinkling under the pressure with which they gripped their blasters - it was as if they were green. Their step, hitching in a stutter at one point or another, like their legs had, for a split second, given in. Even their eyes would look glassy, if either of them happened to look each other’s way. Finally, whenever they were talking, discussing battle plans or strategies - not that there was much of that, they weren’t commanders, even if they were smarter than most of them, more practical - they’d trail off. In a daze. As if they were confused. Didn’t know where they were.</p><p>They’d be back to themselves within a few seconds, only shaking their head and continuing on with their speech.</p><p>It was on one of those run-of-the-mill raids in the Outer Rim, all four of them together, when it happened.</p><p>At the time, Zhade-Ran was watching Taddea pointedly firing away at a Human woman, who was scrambling up to run and escape. That wouldn't be hard, because Taddea had aimed his blaster approximately far-too-kriffing-far centimeters from where it was supposed to be to hit - well, anything. </p><p>They weren't good Stormtroopers anymore. Not by a long shot. Which went to say they missed their shots where it mattered; while Taddea had always had difficulties with killing, Zhade-Ran only picked her honor back from the scraps once Taddea told her he was thinking of deserting. She figured causing needless death was a very Stormtrooper thing to do.</p><p>It had been easy for her. But that wasn’t to say she actively enjoyed it, as did some of the higher officials. There had never been much honor in death, such was a bounty-hunter’s truth, and it didn’t change if she was the one doing the killing. </p><p>So she stopped, and, for once, learned from her young friend.</p><p>The woman noticed Taddea’s lack of attempts to straighten his aim, and looked up at him, her eyes red and swollen, tear tracks lining her cheeks. Zhade-Ran nodded sharply toward the ruins of the town and away, and the civilian leapt to her feet, making a break for it as she was followed by enthusiastically inaccurate flashes of red.</p><p>Zhade-Ran was about to split her face grinning when Taddea yelped - and when she turned to him, looking for a stray bolt, all she saw was Company's grip on his shoulder, pulling him up to his face.</p><p>"What," the clone hissed, "do you think you're doing?"</p><p>Even from a couple meters or so, she saw how hard the grip was - because Taddea squirmed for a second and failed to break it, and he was not weak.</p><p>"What do you think?" Taddea countered. Zhade-Ran listened in, ready, if necessary, to fire her first kriff-the-Empire bolt - into Company's head. But Taddea was managing, his voice heavy with venom. "I'm doing as I'm told. Shooting."</p><p>The clone gave a grim laugh, tugging him closer. Taddea dug his heels in, wrapping his hands around the man's wrist. "That wasn't <em>shooting</em>, that was letting it <em>escape</em>."</p><p>Taddea's eyes flared. "<em>It</em>?" </p><p>Making him angry was an achievement. Calling sentients "it" to any Twi'lek's face? If the Twi'lek happened to have a blaster, that was unlikely to be survivable. Zhade-Ran bared her teeth. Shoved herself between them.</p><p>"You get the kriff off him, clone," she cut in before he could do something he would regret, finally pulling them apart, ripping Company's hand from Taddea's shoulder. "He's doing his job. Don't like it, get a transfer."</p><p>That was a low blow and they were both aware of it. Clones didn't get transfers. Clones didn't <em>want</em> transfers. They should've been able to work in any team, any environment, and Company knew this.</p><p>That was why, perhaps, he then turned sharply around and returned to position, looking out over the field.</p><p>"You new shinies are <em>shameful</em>," he muttered, gesturing for Twenty-Four, who was watching them passively with an occasional click of a trigger, to keep firing, and took good aim with his blasters, shooting for a man with a child in his arms. Zhade-Ran grit her teeth. "Couldn't hit a B1 if it was stomping on your toes, not at all like we used to--"</p><p>Zhade-Ran spun on her heel, again, ready to at last put her itching fist through the idiot's helmet or break her hand trying, and found that Company had frozen. Completely.</p><p>It didn't even look like he was breathing. His chestplate was stuttering in place. Zhade-Ran glanced at Taddea, ready to step back - or in - whatever was going on.</p><p>Then, in a flash, a few things happened. First, Company threw his hands up to his head, clawing at the helmet. His fingers, even through the glove, left deep scratches on the visor, gritty streaks on white on the sickeningly perfect black. The shift from complete stillness was so jarring it took them a second to process that, immediately afterward, his knees gave out. He collapsed to the ground with an aborted noise. </p><p>Zhade-Ran reached out, intending to drag Taddea back with her herself, even more unsure of what was going on, looking around frantically. Was the enemy closer than expected? Was danger lurking nearby?</p><p>Twenty-Four passed by them, then, blind to their confusion, looking straight ahead. He got a few meters closer than he was before in a split second, fell to a crouch down next to Company. And spoke.</p><p>Even in the noise of the battle around them, his quiet voice broke through, so unlike the cold and cutting tone the clones usually spoke in.</p><p>“Hey,” Twenty-Four was saying, one hand on the other’s shoulder. “Up, up, come on. You’re fine. What is it?"</p><p>He dragged him up by the arm, steadying him in place, even as Company struggled to stay upright, leaning heavily on him. Twenty-Four cocked his head to the side, <em>expressive</em>, and knocked his hand against Company's pauldron. "Talk to me, trooper."</p><p>Taddea stilled in her arms, and Zhade-Ran stared. She <em>swore</em> there was something like concern edged into the clone's movements, though heavily distilled by the unyielding certainty, as always. </p><p>She watched as he steered Company toward cover, sat him down. Lingered. Almost as if…</p><p>Kriff. She turned away, hardly believing her own eyes. It was the most human thing to do, to care for another, and something Zhade-Ran had never seen a clone do. </p><p>Maybe her - Maybe her own visor had malfunctioned, or something. </p><p>"<em>Haar'chak</em>," Company spat, oblivious.</p><p>Zhade-Ran blinked. Then knocked a hand against her helmet, unsure if she misheard.</p><p><em>Mando'a</em>?</p><p>Now this was too much. This had to be some weird quirk he picked up from somewhere, maybe he'd just heard the word and it stuck, him logically assuming it was a curse, maybe from her, even - because the clones did not speak Mando'a. Couldn't. </p><p>Just some remnant, then, perhaps, of the Clone Wars era. </p><p>She watched, grinding her teeth together, as he finally tore his helmet off, wheezing for breath, and leaned back, pushing his hand so hard into his temple it looked like it was caving in. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. He looked - feverish.</p><p>Taddea turned. "I'll--"</p><p>"Stay," Zhade-Ran told him. But it wasn't a request, more so a plea. She needed to get away from them. "You'll stay. I'll flag down a medic for him."</p><p>Then, followed by his curious eyes, she threw one last glance at Company, who was shaking his head incessantly like he was trying to chase off a bug, at Twenty-Four, who'd gone rigid again and right back at shooting with annoying accuracy, turned on her heel and stepped away from cover.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"Kark! You, you kriffing - <em>boc'ara</em>!" Taddea cried,<a href="#boc" id="bocback" name="bocback"><sup>4</sup></a> pulling her into his arms as soon as she walked into the bunkroom. She stumbled, hissing in pain, favoring her left. "Shot <em>thrice</em>, Seventy-Five told me! I stood outside medical for hours until he chased me away! How are you alive? What were you thinking?"</p><p>Zhade-Ran answered most of those questions with idle grunts of varying tonations and let him guide her to his bunk. The medic asked no questions - also a clone, never too methodical - just dumped her into a bacta tank and let her marinate for a bit before fishing her out and sending her on her merry way. And while the two impressively insignificant shots that nicked at her side were pretty much forgotten, courtesy of the thick substance that glazed them over, the one that shattered her pauldron and pierced the shoulder still ached. Not to mention the bacta had made her feel woozy. </p><p>Damned rebels, she remembered thinking. Fondly. She couldn't even fire back - technically, they now had the same cause. It would've been counter-productive.</p><p>"Honestly, you're going to be the death of me," Taddea kept grumbling, leading her to the bunks - and then was cut off by a rather well-aimed pillow hitting his head, knocking him forward with a dull "oomph". </p><p>"Would you," came Twenty-Four's voice from over Zhade-Ran's bunk, "<em>pack it in</em>, TK-7000. <em>Some</em> of us are trying to sleep."</p><p>Now, IA regulation pillows could hardly be called pillows at all. They were more akin to concrete-colored crop fertilizer bags that were filled with gravel and zipped up with a tie that probably came from some pre-Empire Separatist's lunch bag. So the fact that Taddea didn't immediately attempt to attack Twenty-Four for what was undoubtedly a near-attempt on his life said more about his moral standards than most other things.</p><p>Instead, he just raised Twenty-Four some double birds before throwing the pillow back up to him. "Can't you clones press a button for shut-off or something?" He winced, scratching at the back of his head.</p><p>"Polite," Zhade-Ran commented. "I would've…" Well, she would've probably climbed right up to him and beaten him with the same pillow he threw. "...I wouldn't have given it back."</p><p>"Yeah, and then gotten into a fistfight," Taddea said impatiently, grabbing her by the arm. "And ended up in medical again."</p><p>Zhade-Ran shrugged. "Can't argue with that."</p><p>She had no objections when Taddea, still cursing under his breath, took off her messily-put-on armour, and then stripped down to his glove himself before tucking her in and sliding in with. </p><p>"Now, in no uncertain terms," Taddea began, practically into her ear, "you will tell me what the <em>actual kriff</em> came over you. You got shot -"</p><p>"Three times, vod'ika, yes. I am aware." Zhade-Ran shrugged, which proved to be a tad difficult considering her current position. "It kind of tickled there, you know." Before he could start grumbling again, she added, "I went to get the clone a medic."</p><p>"Failing spectacularly and getting shot three times."</p><p>"Yes, as mentioned, I recognize the fact that there were briefly a few blaster bolts near my body," she dragged on, smiling and certainly not snuggling closer to him.</p><p>"Three of them, to be precise," he stressed, wrapping himself around her, smaller as he was. She listened for a minute or so as his heartbeat slowed, tangled together in a way that spoke more of Taddea's fear of losing her rather than their comfort with one another. </p><p>But oh, it was getting warmer, being shielded from the cool corridors by the blanket and Taddea’s warm weight pressed against her side. It was beginning to get warmer, and she was getting sleepier and sleepier. It wasn’t her fault she’d started associating this, Taddea’s bunk and him by her side, with rest - but it was something she rather treasured, this feeling of safety, if perceived. Her thoughts were gradually getting foggier. If this continued, she was going to go under, and hopefully have a few good hours of unbothered rest for once. It was that kind of night.</p><p>Taddea, however, didn’t seem to think so, since it took him only a couple of minutes to take her by the shoulder and shake gently.</p><p>“Hey, Zhade-Ran, they’re asleep,” he murmured to her, bright eyes looking out at the other bunks, rising warily to the one above them. “Stay awake for a bit for me. They’re asleep.”</p><p>“I’d like to be that way, too,” she grumbled, swatting his hand away, but he only chuckled and grabbed her tighter.</p><p>"Yeah, yeah, I know, but we can’t be sure when we’ll have an opportunity to talk again.” His smile fell, replaced with a grim frown. “We really ought to discuss the bantha on the ship."</p><p>Zhade-Ran turned her head to him, eyes only half-open. "The Empire?"</p><p>He bowed his head to the side. "Among other things."</p><p><em>The clones,</em> Zhade-Ran understood, letting her eyes drift across the room for a moment.</p><p>“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she conceded, lifting herself up by her elbows and shaking her head, warding off a yawn.</p><p>“We’re - We’re going to…” he leaned closer, all the way down to her ear. “We’re going to desert, aren’t we? That’s the plan?”</p><p>“I mean, if that’s what you want,” Zhade-Ran replied languidly. “Then yes, I suppose we are.”</p><p>Taddea looked at her, brows furrowed. “What I want? What about you?”</p><p>Zhade-Ran considered his question for a moment. Again, she did not love the Empire. Hated it, for what it’d done to her father, who’d raised her when he did not have to, who loved her when it was not something ordered for him to do. It wasn’t like that in the Empire - if there were no orders to breathe, was one of the more famous exaggerations, then a good soldier would just stand there holding their breath until their face went blue and they collapsed from oxygen loss.</p><p>But even if she knew she'd loathe it, loathe <em>herself</em> for staying, she was still alive, after seven years in it. Most couldn’t say the same. She knew how to survive here, there wasn’t much left to learn for her. It was a more or less comfortable life, even if it didn’t really belong to her.</p><p>“It depends on you,” she confirmed.</p><p>“What,” Taddea gaped. “It’s all the same to you, to stay or to go?”</p><p>“Of course it isn’t,” she objected, adding, “But I’m not going to go out of my way to get hunted down.” She watched, a little nervously, as his eyes flared up with disbelief.</p><p>“Stars, Zhade-Ran, don’t you have any principles?” he questioned, looking utterly horrified.</p><p>“I invent a few when I see a reason to,” she told him calmly.</p><p>Taddea shook his head, still unsure of what to make of her. “Your father was killed by the Empire, you say, and you’d still fight for them?”</p><p>“Kid,” Zhade-Ran sighed. “I haven’t been fighting for the Empire for years. Did you see me kill anyone the past few times? I’m better than that, I hope you know my aim isn’t usually that shit. I’m not a droid for them, no, but I’m not going to get a company on my back just because I have nobody left to fight for.”</p><p>“Stars,” Taddea repeated himself. </p><p>“Except,” she said, “You, perhaps. So it’s your call.”</p><p>But, as she spoke, Zhade-Ran realized something. She may not be, but her father would be horrified at just words from her, same as Taddea now looked. She had once been a Mandalorian. And a Mandalorian would have avoided this fate, would’ve rather died than become a slave for the Imperial Army, just like her father did.</p><p>A few colorful handprints surfaced in her memory, and laugher.</p><p>She turned to look at Taddea, and realized the man was staring into the base of the top bunk above them, blank-eyed.</p><p>Zhade-Ran’s grip on her own thighs was bruising. “No, Taddea,” she swallowed, unsure how to put it; she’d never wanted any ordeal where she’d have to use her words, but here they were. “Perhaps you’re right,” she spoke slowly. “You're right. I'm sorry I made you think... I'm - stuck in my ways, I know that. All I've wanted for the past few years was to survive."</p><p>"That's no living," Taddea muttered.</p><p>"No," Zhade-Ran agreed easily. "It is not. But it was a prettier option than death."</p><p>"Not to me," he said, so quietly she barely heard him.</p><p>She found his hand under the blanket and squeezed. "I know, vod'ika. And what I'm saying is - I agree with you. I know that I sounded like a..." She hesitated.</p><p>"...You sounded like a clone," he ended for her. She nodded. "You did."</p><p>"I did. And I realize that." She took a deeper breath once Taddea's hand wrapped around hers, too. "And I want to change that. So if you're running - I'm running with you, kid. Gladly."</p><p>“Now that’s what I’m saying.” Taddea smiled, and it was as if her earlier words were forgotten. He wasn't ever upset for long. “It’s just that we have to work out how exactly that’s going to happen. We can’t just waltz out the front door, can we?</p><p>Zhade-Ran chuckled, nodding. “Well, it’s just that nobody’s tried before, I presume. And we’ve got those two piles of scrap on the lookout…"</p><p>“Right,” Taddea sighed. “I could take on one clone, you know, two at the same time would probably punch me into the ground.”</p><p>“I’m sure you’d be fine,” Zhade-Ran soothed, winking at him. "As long as I'm there."</p><p>"Oh, <em>thanks</em>," he muttered as she laughed. After a pause, he cleared his throat, a little meekly. "Do you think they're stronger than us?" he asked, reminding Zhade-Ran of her own youth. Constantly needing reassurance and second-guessing every plan. Perhaps it was the Empire itself that shaped her, but at least she knew now that going over every possibility of how things could go wrong would drive one mad.</p><p>"Maybe," she agreed. Taddea glanced down at her, brows furrowed. She reached to tug lightly at his lekku, smiling. "But that doesn't mean they're better."</p><p>Taddea sighed, shaking her hand off his head, and pressed his face into her collarbone. It was bound to be a short rest. Stormtroopers rarely slept long hours.</p><p>This was made significantly worse by the fact that the two were not going to clock in even the standard five or six.</p><p>Zhade-Ran slowly tore her eyes open. She was unsure if it'd been a minute or two or if several hours had already passed. She didn’t even really know if she had been asleep in the first place, to be quite honest. But Taddea had stilled next to her, sensing something, as he always did, and Zhade-Ran looked on at him uneasily as she listened. </p><p>There was creaking coming from the bunk above them. Zhade-Ran squinted as the surface reflected what little light there was in the barracks already.</p><p>To her displeasure, she realized the clone above was waking. Company.</p><p>"Who," rang a hoarse murmur from the upper bunk, and Taddea froze in Zhade-Ran's arms even further, by the looks of it, ceasing to breathe. "Who the <em>kriff</em> shaved me?"</p><p>The bunk creaked as its occupant sat up, immediately hitting his head against the low ceiling.</p><p>"Kriff is this?" echoed the same, angrier voice. "What the…"</p><p>Zhade-Ran raised an eyebrow to Taddea, who just shrugged. Did they not fix the damn thing? And if so, why was he still here?</p><p>As she was figuring it out, the bunk creaked again, and, suddenly, there was a face hanging upside down from the upper bunk. She stared, unsure of what to do. A year of absolute radio silence, and then he decides to check on them at too-kriffing-late-o'clock?</p><p>Company’s hair, short as it was, was a mess, and his eyes looked a bit deeper, somehow, a little darker. Like there was a smidge of life in there somewhere.</p><p>Then, to Zhade-Ran’s and Taddea’s simultaneous and disbelieving shock, Company opened his mouth and spoke. </p><p>"Uh. Hello there?"</p><p>"Um," Zhade-Ran answered, rather appropriately.</p><p>"Hi," Taddea seconded warily.</p><p>Zhade-Ran cleared her throat, peering right through the clone's eyes. Perhaps if she looked threatening enough, he'd just kriff off. "What do you want."</p><p>"Well. Um." He opened his mouth, closed it, looked around for a bit. Zhade-Ran narrowed her eyes. To say that he was acting weird was an understatement. The fact that he was <em>talking</em> to them was already an anomaly. The clone cleared his throat. "Do you happen to know how I got here? And … where "here" is?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="vod" name="vod"></a>1. “Vod, vod’ika” – Sibling, little sibling. <a href="#vodback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="buir" name="buir"></a>2. “Buir” – Parent. <a href="#buirback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="rid" name="rid"></a>3. “Riduurok” – A love bond, a marriage agreement.<br/>Remembrances – A repetition followed by the deceased loved ones’ names, said to honour their memory. <a href="#ridback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="boc" name="boc"></a>4. “Boc’ara” – Idiot <i>(Ryl).</i> <a href="#bocback">Back to text</a><br/>thank you for reading! the next chapter will be up in a few minutes.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Songs Of Days Past Escape Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The clones were once a people; they had forgotten, and nobody else had ever known.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>specific warnings for this chapter are as follows:<br/>-depersonalization<br/>-background character death (discussion of order 66)</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>please heed the warnings!!</b>
</p>
<p>let's get into the clones friends!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Well, that didn’t help her suspicions. Taddea sat up straighter next to her, looking more puzzled than she’d ever seen him, but he couldn’t compare to the kind of confusion clear to read on Company’s face. </p>
<p>"Excuse me?" Zhade-Ran spoke up before Taddea could, brows knitted together tightly. "Are you trying to be funny?"</p>
<p>Company clicked his tongue, still looking around like he’d never seen the room before. “Do I look like I’m trying to be anything? I’m trying to figure out why I’m in a room with only two other people in a bunk I’ve never laid eyes on before.” His eyes widened when he took a better look at the pair. “Son of a rancor, you’re nat-borns, too.”</p>
<p>Neither of them mentioned Twenty-Four. “I have no idea what that means, but I feel like I should be insulted,” Zhade-Ran commented, putting a hand on Taddea’s chest before he could get up. Company just waved a hand vaguely.</p>
<p>“Don’t be. It means natural-born. Not a clone.” Carefully, he swung himself over the edge of the bunk and came to stand in front of them, leaning on the ladder. He genuinely looked like this was his first time in a bunk room. “I… Huh, I’m dizzy.”</p>
<p>“Well, go get to medical, then.” Zhade-Ran could not care less, she told herself, about this extremely curious situation, but the clone was confusing her and she was beginning to dislike the entire ordeal. “It’s not that much farther.”</p>
<p>“If I knew where it was, maybe I would,” he muttered.</p>
<p>“Holy shit.” Zhade-Ran raised an eyebrow. “We’re not going to hold your hand, man, ask your other friend.”</p>
<p>“What kriffing friend are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“You’ve been in the damn squad for a year and you still can’t recognize the only other mug that looks like yours?” she asked him dryly. “Well, sure, I guess it’s rare that they manage to keep you clones together without you killing each other for long anyways.”</p>
<p>“Excuse me-?”</p>
<p>“Uh, can we be a bit more civil?” Taddea put both hands between them, whispering furiously, “And perhaps a bit quieter?”</p>
<p>“Hey, I didn’t start the show,” Zhade-Ran snapped back, though she leveled her voice. “If he thinks he can just hang down to us and act like he’s he’s never seen us before--”</p>
<p>“Lady, I <em>haven’t </em>ever seen you before. In my life. I do not know who you are,” Company stressed. Zhade-Ran opened her mouth to feed him back his words, but Company raised a hand. “No, listen. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve never laid eyes on you before, I don’t know who either of you are, I don’t know where I am.”</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran leaned forward. Squinted at him. His eyebrows were furrowed, his eyes a little less glassy. He looked - lost. She would've guessed it was a concussion if he wasn't a clone. Any sort of blow to the head took them out particularly quickly.</p>
<p>She parted her lips. “...Wait. You’re not kriffing with us. You’re actually serious.” <em>For kriff’s sake</em>.</p>
<p>“Uh. Yes, that’s what I’ve been telling you.” He pushed himself away from the bunk a little bit, testing his legs.  “I think I remember a bit of - yesterday? Maybe you were there, but I can’t tell. I really can’t tell, what in the kriffing--” He shook his head, one hand going up to rake through his hair absent-mindedly.</p>
<p>“Okay, hold on, hold on,” Zhade-Ran raised her hands. “I get it, I’m not going to fight him, Taddea, get off my back. Clone, what’s the last thing you remember?”</p>
<p>"I'm, uh - Utapau? We were finishing off some droids…" He shook his head. "But, no, no, there's something after Utapau, but - I can't remember. Kriff, wait. It's all foggy."</p>
<p>"Utapau?" Taddea echoed. He'd never seen the planet before. Hadn't heard of the Empire sending envoys there for as long as he was in the Imperial Army. "You… You sure?"</p>
<p>"Listen, buddy, I have no idea what you're playing at," Zhade-Ran told him. "We're on a ship to Felucia. Something about the native population surging up. You remember yesterday? Don't you clones listen to briefings better than we do?"</p>
<p>"Well, apparently <em>that</em> part wasn't important enough to remember," Company bit at her. Before she could speak again, he tilted his head in thought. "Wait. Why the hell are we going to Felucia? They need reinforcements? Since when does the 327<sup>th</sup>…"</p>
<p>He bowed his head abruptly again, grabbing at the hair with one hand as he hissed in pain through his teeth. Just like before. Paying no mind to Zhade-Ran's suspicions, Taddea shot up to ease him to the ground. Company clutched the edge of the bunk and raised a free hand, signing to Taddea that he would be fine.</p>
<p>"Karking hell," he muttered, rubbing at his temples. "What the kriff is going on."</p>
<p>"Yeah, I'd like to know that too," Zhade-Ran commented, standing up from where she had sat up and watching the clone warily. "First, what's a 327<sup>th</sup>?"</p>
<p>"Who are the other 326?" Taddea half-joked, smiling faintly as he sank down to put a hand on Company's shoulder. Zhade-Ran clicked her tongue in displeasure. How conveniently quickly did Taddea forget who he was talking to…</p>
<p>"They're - General Secura's men?" </p>
<p>“We don’t-” Taddea squinted, leaning closer to him, “We don’t have a General Secura. I don’t know anyone named Secura.”</p>
<p>"How have you missed <em>Secura</em>? Are you even 212<sup>th</sup>?” His eyes were pressed shut so tightly it looked like it hurt. “But you’re a nat-born, that’s… You’re not in the 212<sup>th</sup>, no. But if you say that we're en route to Felucia, and that's - that's her territory, the 327<sup>th</sup> had been sure they'd handle it, then what - what happened?" he was muttering. "But there was a… No, how did the battle end? There was a report…"</p>
<p>"I hope you know exactly how little sense you're making right now," Zhade-Ran told him. "Taddea, he's not right. Keep your guard up."</p>
<p>"Shut up," Company whispered. "I'm trying to remember. I saw a report. Battle of Felucia. Commendation… And the execution of -"</p>
<p>Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. He flinched back so violently Taddea's hand slipped off his shoulder - Company managed to clock him in the chest with his elbow, too, Taddea stumbling before falling on his backside with a yelp.</p>
<p>"Hey, what -" he tried, grabbing at the clone again.</p>
<p>"Commander Bly," Company said, and Zhade-Ran had never heard a clone sound terrified. But this was it. She had never heard another soldier any more terrified than this. "Holy <em>shit.</em> What have you <em>done</em>?"</p>
<p>"Clone," Taddea spoke up, finally, sitting up from where he'd been shoved down. "I'm trying to understand you. Can you <em>please</em> tell me what the kriff you're talking about?"</p>
<p>Company turned around and looked at him, and Zhade-Ran subconsciously flinched away from the look in his eyes. He looked like one of the men that had seen all of it, fought, lost, and then saw once more just what their loss looked like from the outside.</p>
<p>“You’re not the GAR,” he said - whispered, more like, and Zhade-Ran thought that if he stared any harder he’d burn a hole right through Taddea’s forehead - “I’m not the GAR either.”</p>
<p>He looked down to his hands, at his glove, pulled at the sleeves slightly, tugged out a few strings. He looked at his armor, stacked on one of the racks by the door, and shook his head like he was trying to lose a fly. “This isn’t the Republic.”</p>
<p>“No,” Taddea grumbled, entirely too casual, propping himself up on his elbows, still on the floor. “No, we’re Imperial. All four of us. We’re, uh. You’ve probably been Imperial for the past seven years.”</p>
<p>Company turned to him again. Almost automatically, he took a step closer, and Zhade-Ran twisted herself out of the bunk so quickly something cracked, but Company only reached out a hand for Taddea. Again, it didn’t look like he even saw what he was doing, cooped up somewhere in his head. The sight was at the very least startling. </p>
<p>Taddea took his hand anyway, letting himself be pulled to his feet. He appreciated the weirdly considerate gesture from the clone, frowning as he put a hand on his shoulder again. “Hey. Maybe you should sit down? Something’s not right with you.”</p>
<p>“Everything’s right with me,” Company managed, but took his advice and leaned more heavily against the ladder again. “Right now. Everything’s not right - <em>here</em>.”</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran stood up, throwing one quick glance to Twenty-Four’s bunk. The clones really did seem like droids, sometimes, because the man hadn’t even moved. Out like a light. She turned back to Company.</p>
<p>“He told you to sit,” she repeated, physically helping him onto the bunk she and Taddea had just been on a few minutes ago. “We don’t need you fainting on us. I’m not carrying you to the medbay.”</p>
<p>“What kriffing medbay.” He leaned back against the wall, not sure what to do with his hands, resorting to digging the nails into his thighs. “I’m a clone. They’d put me down.”</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran tilted her head. Regrettably, he was right. “...They probably would. It’s mostly clones in the medbay, though.”</p>
<p>“They’re not right. Same as I was.” Company just kept shaking his head, picking at his arms. Taddea worried that he was going to scratch through his glove, this way.</p>
<p>“Clearly.” Zhade-Ran, unsure of what she was even doing, went down on one knee to look him in the eye. He was lost and they wouldn’t get anything out of him if they kept throwing random questions. Even if this was some weird side-effect of whatever they’d done to him last time, what happened on the field or whatever, he wasn’t hostile and her animosity toward him had started waning. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but she figured she’d deal with it later. “Hey. Can you start from the beginning? What were you doing on Utapau?”</p>
<p>“...Blasting the droids, mostly,” he answered like it was the easiest thing in the world, tilting his head as he hesitantly met his eyes. “The Wars were… About to end. That’s what the Commander thought. The General probably agreed with him. Most of us did.”</p>
<p>“Your Commander? And General?” Zhade-Ran encouraged. She didn’t like this, and she could tell Taddea didn’t either.</p>
<p>He was talking about the Clone Wars. He remembered the Clone Wars. The clones weren’t supposed to do that, and they never did. Even if they knew what they had done, they never spoke about it - so why was Company so horrified by this, as if he didn’t know what he was doing back then and had now suddenly grown a conscience?</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he said, his voice small. “We - We were going to ensure the Separatists’ defeat. And then there would be…” He shook his head again. “We dared to hope for peace.”</p>
<p>“But - But you fired on your Generals.” Taddea’s voice just about matched Company’s in its meekness. “You killed them.”</p>
<p>Company squeezed his own hands so tightly the knuckles went pale. It looked like he was physically hurt by the words he was saying. “We killed them. We killed our Generals.” He looked at Taddea, something gone, something missing in his face. “We killed our General. What the - Why would we - <em>What</em>.” His breath was shaky as he leaned back, just a little bit, sagging against the wall. “I don’t - I don’t <em>understand</em>, we never would’ve fired on the Jedi, <em>kriff</em>, we - after the war, we and them, we thought this would all be over, why would we - We would <em>never</em>, I’d <em>never</em> - “ He dove into his hands, nails leaving red lines on his forehead. “Why would we… Why would we kill him? Why the kriff would we ever kill <em>him</em>?”</p>
<p>Taddea sputtered something in his confusion. Zhade-Ran raised her hand to quiet him down a bit and moved back a step. She could sense oncoming shellshock when she saw it, and something was definitely very very wrong with Company. </p>
<p>“Okay.” She reached out a hand but didn’t touch him, she didn’t know him, didn’t know what he needed in those times. He could've done anything from leaning in to taking a swing at her. “Breathe, Company. Come on.” She echoed faintly the things she’d told Taddea what seemed like years ago, because that’s how Company was acting - like he’d just gotten news of his entire family being massacred and his whole life crushed. “Hey. Can you look at me? Don’t push it.”</p>
<p>Company raised his eyes, slowly. Same old, same old. But he looked alive. Hurt, but alive. </p>
<p>For a second, Zhade-Ran couldn’t see a clone. She saw a person - and then realized she couldn’t come back to seeing a clone. </p>
<p>“We killed him,” he repeated in an even tone, and she didn’t even think to ask whoever that ‘he’ was. “And then, with the Jedi gone, the Sith established the Empire.”</p>
<p>“I mean,” Taddea muttered from behind them. “Yeah, that’s exactly how it went. Did you not know it?”</p>
<p>“I did.” His fingers twitched. “I did. But it didn’t - I don’t think it registered. Any of it. Until now. It was like one second I was myself, and another I was -...” Company closed his eyes, gesturing vaguely. “Floating. I knew what I - what we did, but, it’s… Kriff, it's like there's a wall of smoke over everything. Like someone's blocking me out. It was as if I was trapped in my own head.”</p>
<p>Taddea stepped forward, shoving Zhade-Ran to the side. His eyes were glimmering. “Do you think something could’ve caused it? Messed with your brain somehow?”</p>
<p>Company looked up at him, opening his mouth, then closing it again. “I,” he managed, bewildered, “I feel like I know the answer to that. But I don’t - I don’t know?”</p>
<p>“Okay, maybe it’ll come back to you,” Taddea tried. Company stood up abruptly, frightening him a step back. Zhade-Ran reached for Taddea instinctively, but Company didn’t do anything - he just stared.</p>
<p>“But we all <em>knew</em>,” he insisted, glancing around himself like he was supposed to find more clones in the bunk room. “Why don’t I remember? Why didn’t any of us remember? <em>Seven years</em>.”</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran moved in front of Taddea calmly. “We don’t know that,” she said in what was perhaps her quietest voice that night. “Taddea is right. Maybe it’ll come back to you.”</p>
<p>“Like hell.” He rose and stumbled away from them, toward the door. “I - Yeah, it will. It is. This is kriffing - “ He laughed, suddenly, retreating backward until he was back to the door. “Seven years. How could we - how did we?”</p>
<p>He turned around, staring at the door. It opened once it detected a presence, granting passage into a dim corridor. Most troopers would be asleep at this time, the night crew being the obvious exceptions. Company glanced back at the bunk.</p>
<p>“I’ll - I’ve got to figure this out,” he said, quietly. “It’s all a - all of it is a mess.”</p>
<p>With that, he stepped over into the darkness. Something was going through his mind, something heavy and difficult, and Zhade-Ran, who didn’t exactly have any proof of clones even <em>having</em> a mind to speak of before now, suddenly found herself wanting to stop him.</p>
<p>Taddea, bless his heart, was first. He jumped, leaping a few steps after him. “Hey, whatever you do, don’t go to the medbay,” he spilled frantically. “You were right, before. You’re a clone, they’ll - They’ll kill you.”</p>
<p>Company turned around to look at him, nodded. “I know.” </p>
<p>And then he was gone.</p>
<p>Taddea licked his lips, wandering back to Zhade-Ran and voicelessly fixing the blanket on his bunk before crawling in to rest against the wall. </p>
<p>“That was - I don’t like how he said that,” he muttered. Zhade-Ran tilted her head.</p>
<p>“No,” she agreed, sitting down next to him. “I didn’t either.”</p>
<p>“Think he’ll be alright?” </p>
<p>Before she could find a way to answer, another little rustle got their attention, but it was only Twenty-Four rolling over in his bunk.</p>
<p>“You people,” he muttered, glaring them down with eyes that didn’t resemble Company’s in the slightest, now, “are <em>insufferable</em>.”</p>
<p>And, to his probable surprise just before he fell asleep again, there was no sarcastic answer to his comment. </p>
<p>Zhade-Ran looked at Taddea. “Not his time yet,” she tried to joke, quietly, but Taddea shook his head.</p>
<p>“Do you think there’s something - there’s something making them act like that?” </p>
<p>“Like Company or Twenty-Four?” She’d forgotten her aversion to using their names. Or, well, at least Taddea’s nicknames.</p>
<p>“Twenty-Four.”</p>
<p>“Well,” she settled closer to him, wrapping him up in her arms again, finally, “if there is, only Company can tell us that.”</p>
<p>“He shouldn’t have gone,” Taddea murmured into her shoulder. “Goddess knows what they’ll do to him.” After a moment, he asked her, his voice rising anxiously, “You think he’ll be distant again tomorrow?”</p>
<p>“Or dead,” Zhade-Ran replied lightly, but, sensing his horror, pat him on the arm. She tried to be sure of it, but she couldn’t - Company, he’d been too… human for her to be sure of anything. “Don’t worry about it. He probably will. You never know with those clones. You’ll see, tomorrow he’ll be back to his unapproachable, insufferable self, and this’ll be some weird clone malfunction.”</p>
<p>She pulled him a bit closer to herself, wrapped her arms around him a little tighter and closed her eyes. That was the hope she went under with. That everything would come back to a more easily understandable state of being as soon as she woke up.</p>
<p>That was… not quite what happened.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran’s uncertainty hadn’t been unwarranted, as it turned out. When the 'morning' - no mornings in space, not really - came, Company was in his bunk, yes, but once he’d jumped down at the sound of the blaring alarms that greeted them each cycle, he looked like he hadn’t slept at all.</p>
<p>They moved to their armour, Twenty-Four done and waiting for them in exasperated silence, helmet already dutifully on.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran looked at Company, and saw the same life in his eyes. Pressed her lips together. Not some malfunction, then. There was certainly something larger at play here.</p>
<p>Buckling on his shin guards, Taddea ‘accidentally’ brushed against his leg.</p>
<p>“Company,” he said, quietly, “You still in there?”</p>
<p>He turned to him. “Why do you call me that?” His voice was even. Perhaps he did figure something out, yesterday. He didn’t look the same as he did before the entire ordeal went down, but he certainly wasn’t frantic or as panicked anymore. He just looked - defeated, in a way. </p>
<p>“Because, um -” Taddea shrugged. “I don’t know what your name is.”</p>
<p>"My name's Boil." His voice was quiet. "...Used to be, anyway."</p>
<p>Taddea went silent for a moment. “Well, I reckon it still is, then. Nice to - Nice to meet you. I’m Taddea.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Company - Boil - said impassively, but still turned his head to look at Zhade-Ran.</p>
<p>She blinked. "...Why."</p>
<p>"What do you mean - why?"</p>
<p>"Why Boil?" she clarified, clipping on her vambraces.</p>
<p>"It's - " He shrugged, raising an eyebrow. "It's just my name?"</p>
<p>She pulled a face. "...I think you should stick to 'Company'."</p>
<p>“Ha.” To their surprise, Boil managed a wry smile. “I’d deck you if you were in armour.”</p>
<p>“Okay, shock trooper, I’m almost there.” She preferred this version of him. Definitely this version. “I’m Zhade-Ran. But you don’t call us that.” </p>
<p>“No?” Boil raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”</p>
<p>“Because you’re a clone,” she answered simply. Before he could protest, she raised a hand, using the chance to kick her leg slightly, testing the shin guards. “Formally, I’m TK-6836 and he’s TK-7000. You’re - whatever your number is. It’s like that.”</p>
<p>Boil nodded, eyes clouding. “Lucky number,” he said to Taddea absent-mindedly, clasping up his chest plate and picking up his helmet.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“We used to call those lucky troopers in the GAR. Vode with rounded thousands or four identical numbers. My Commander was off by two, always named that the reason he got excess paperwork.” He shook his head, smiling grimly. </p>
<p>Twenty-Four, very deliberately, tilted his head to the side, looking Boil up and down. </p>
<p>“Hurry up,” he said, quieter than usual, and manually opened the closed door before stepping out. The lights in the hallways were blinding, now. </p>
<p>Before they could leave, Zhade-Ran grabbed Boil by the upper arm.</p>
<p>"Careful," she advised, as quickly as she could. "You don’t look like yourself, and while I don’t mean it in a bad way, they - the officers - will want to see you act the same way you did before."</p>
<p>"And what way, exactly, was that?"</p>
<p>One look at their faces, and Boil groaned.</p>
<p>"I'm not going to like this, am I?"</p>
<p>"On the contrary," Taddea chirped, gleefully clapping his hands together. "If there's one thing Zhade-Ran has taught me, it's that sometimes a little bit of wickedness can bring a lot of satisfaction!"</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran glared at him in disbelief. When the hell did he learn <em>that</em>?</p>
<p>“Just stay in line,” she hissed into Boil’s ear. “Act as though you have no autonomy, you’re nothing but a droid. Others might not act the same way, but you’re a clone and that’s what they’ll expect. Follow your friend over there.” She pointed at Twenty-Four, who was standing in the hallway with his back turned on them and didn’t exactly seem like he was interested in whatever she was talking about regarding him, either.</p>
<p>“That’s a clone?” Boil muttered, looking at him like he’d never seen him before. </p>
<p>“Sure is.” Taddea passed them, ordering his lekku before sliding his helmet on and stepping outside. “And that’s what you looked like before yesterday.”</p>
<p>Boil shook his head. <em>Bloody kriffin’ hell,</em> this would be a long day.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>To say that it was would’ve been an understatement.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran could practically smell the confusion in Boil’s actions, but, to his credit, he used his eyes well - every step Twenty-Four took, Boil followed. Every word Twenty-Four said, Boil heard and modeled his own speech after it. While it was obvious with the way he cocked his head to the side at times in confusion that he didn’t exactly understand Twenty-Four's behaviour, he adapted quickly nonetheless, and there was no chance for anyone who wasn't actively looking to notice it.</p>
<p>She was honestly impressed. She knew the clones were clever, sure. Sometimes smarter than the odd Commander, also. (Never allowed to interject during briefings, though - the flaws they found in plans were kept to themselves; the lives their words could’ve saved were left discarded.)</p>
<p>They were in hyperspace, so there was not much to be done outside of cleaning duties and regular gatherings, nothing out of the ordinary. That wasn’t to say, however, that it passed in a blink. Zhade-Ran found herself watching Boil, looking for any semblance of unawareness, anything to say he was coming back to his previous self, but found nothing - for better or for worse.</p>
<p>For the better, she decided, when he bumped lightly into her arm as he passed her in the hallway. She’d do it with Taddea, sometimes, when they were separated and wanted to say hello without making a noise. Maybe the clones used to do that too, in the Republic Army. </p>
<p>She realized she knew the answer, now, to her curiosity on whether the clones were like this by choice or birth, and it was neither. They weren't supposed to be like this, cold and expressionless, at all, if Boil was anything to go by.</p>
<p>The cycle approaching its close, knowing they would be landing tomorrow, they were released back into their bunks to get those few hours of rest reserved for the Stormtroopers - and while Twenty-Four, predictably, collapsed into his own and was out like a light in thirty seconds, Boil didn’t follow this lead. Instead, having been the last one to order out the armour the way it was supposed to be done - perhaps theirs had been different - he walked over to Taddea’s bunk and sat down, cross-legged, on the ground, staring up at them with a sour expression.</p>
<p>"Well, what can I say." He shrugged, not very surprised to see them in the same bunk again. "You were wrong, kid. I kriffin' hate this."</p>
<p>“What?” Taddea blinked.</p>
<p>“The whole ‘playing a slate’ thing. I already detested undercover missions, but this is just a whole new level.” He shook his head. “Why is it even this way? Everyone else gets to be human kriffing people, but not the clones?”</p>
<p>“Well, the clones haven’t been, in the IA’s experience, uh… people,” Taddea tried meekly. </p>
<p>Zhade-Ran shrugged. “He’s right. There are no Stormtroopers like you. Clones, I mean.”</p>
<p>“I can tell you right now that that’s because they’ve all either deserted or died,” Boil told her in a dry tone.</p>
<p>“And you’re not dead,” Taddea pointed out, probably far too hasty, “So…”</p>
<p>Boil stared at him. The same heavy gaze that was more familiar to the two of them. “I have no idea what you’re implying.”</p>
<p>Of course he wouldn’t tell them, Zhade-Ran reasoned. He didn’t even know what they thought of the Empire. Hells, they were ‘nat-borns’, they could’ve agreed with the Imperials for all he knew.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran decided to steer away from one topic to another, both uncomfortable but this one less suspicious.</p>
<p>She leaned forward, clearing her throat. "You spoke Mando'a. How do you know it?"</p>
<p>Boil looked like he welcomed the diversion. "We were trained by Mandalorians. Most of us, anyway. And the good ones," the sour expression on his face suggesting a lack of such people, he continued, "the good ones taught us Mando'a. And even if you didn't get lucky to have one of those trainers, once you were in the GAR, you learned anyway. It was almost <em>the</em> clone language." He raised one eyebrow at her. "Why do you ask?"</p>
<p>"Well," she said calmly, "it also just so happens to be <em>the</em> - my - language. I was lost when I heard you swear in Mando'a. Before you were… Awake, or whatever." </p>
<p>“Probably subconscious.” He shrugged. “Again, I learned it when I was a kid, it’s bound to be bouncing around there somewhere.”</p>
<p>She sighed, relating a little too personally to the statement. “You don’t say.”</p>
<p>“Used it often, too,” he added. “Even our General spoke it, you know. I have no idea where he learned it, he wasn’t a Mando. Told us he understood it the first time brothers tried to speak in secret around him, didn’t want to keep a secret.” Boil pressed his lips together. “Good man.”</p>
<p>Taddea leaned back a little bit in surprise. That sort of officer was pretty much non-existent in the ranks of the Empire. Zhade-Ran, meanwhile, was interested in something a little different.</p>
<p>"So they took you for Mando'ade?"<a href="#mando" id="mandoback" name="mandoback"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
<p>His answer was quick, and practiced. "We weren't Mandos, no."</p>
<p>She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you were raised into it.”</p>
<p>Boil shook his head. "Not culturally, at least."</p>
<p>"You were warriors, though," Taddea interjected, and Zhade-Ran hated to agree with him. Boil made a face.</p>
<p>"Very few of us liked war, you know. It wasn't a… natural part of life, or something we took pride in. It was duty, and bloody duty, and we would die for it and watch our brothers do the same, and, in the end, we couldn't escape it." He looked at Twenty-Four’s bunk, sighing quietly. "But we had dreams. For after the war."</p>
<p>Taddea inched closer. This would break his heart, Zhade-Ran thought to herself, and he probably knew it. He still asked, "Did you?"</p>
<p>"Yeah." Boil chuckled, voice going a little hoarse. "I was no different. Wanted to visit this little girl we met with another one of my brothers. A lieutenant. His name was Waxer. Bit the dust before all this went down, on a particularly bad campaign, stray bolt, and…" Once his throat closed up, he gestured vaguely at everything. "And that was the norm. That was what was expected, as it still is here, it's just that…"</p>
<p>He laughed, then, a small and angry laugh of a broken man. Zhade-Ran felt Taddea twitch to her side. "Force, Manda, the stars or whatever the kark there is, bless the kriffing Jedi for letting us dream. Bless the poor sods for seeing us for what we bloody were, and for calling us human, and giving us <em>hope,</em> and kriff whoever made us do this to them. Kriff it all to seven Sith-spitting hells."</p>
<p>Then, he put his head in his hands and gripped at his hair so hard the knuckles paled.</p>
<p>They sat, for a moment, in the quiet, a heavy atmosphere above their heads. Taddea reached out and put a tentative hand on Boil’s shoulder, getting no reaction but squeezing anyway.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran scratched at her head thoughtfully. Something didn't sit right with her here.</p>
<p>“Boil,” she said, making use of his name for the first time. He gave a passive hum, just a cue that he was listening and not much else. “I believe you, alright? But you gotta explain to me how the hell you managed to pull a one-eighty overnight yesterday. I understand that it’s confusing as it is,” she assured once he opened his mouth to argue, “but do you think it must’ve been the hit you took on Elsodda those few weeks ago, or was it the episode you had when you thought back to the Clone Wars? I don’t understand why you…” She gathered her thoughts, trying very hard to be uncharacteristically considerate. “You speak of the Jedi like they hung half the suns in the sky. But you remember killing them - yours, at least - and did you, at the time, not have any qualms about the situation? And the next <em>seven years</em> as well?”</p>
<p>For a second, there was a distant look on his face. Like he was somewhere away.</p>
<p>“It’s the chip,” Boil replied like he didn’t even quite comprehend what he was saying himself. “It’s the chip, of course.” With that, he sat up straighter and dropped his hands to look at them in horror. “Bloody hell. Of course it is.”</p>
<p>“The chip?” Taddea prodded gently. Boil nodded, his face falling into an expression even more grim than it already was.</p>
<p>“The last few months before the Order to kill the Jedi was sent out, one of the brothers from the 501<sup>st</sup> tried to warn us,” he spoke with a certainty that sure as hell wasn’t his. “I was close to command, I overheard. He was saying that they had chips in all of us - well, what else is new, for ‘controlling aggression’, allegedly, but he claimed it was for actual mind control. Everything was in those chips - from the simplest dogmas on following the chain of command to… Well. Turning on and subsequently executing our Jedi Generals.” He bowed his head as if this was new to him. “Kriffing hell, and we didn’t listen. Look at us now.”</p>
<p>“If someone planted a chip in my brain and then someone tried to tell me it was for killing those I cared about, I probably wouldn’t believe them either,” Taddea soothed, trying to be as kind as it always came easily to him. “Too horrible a truth.”</p>
<p>“And yet the truth nonetheless,” Zhade-Ran said, followed by Boil’s nod. “But - why didn’t the Jedi themselves react to this? A solid threat to all of them?”</p>
<p>“That was the problem - we didn’t know,” he answered. “Perhaps it was all too cleverly arranged, and perhaps they trusted us. And look where that got them.”</p>
<p>He opened his mouth, then closed it. Shook his head. At least now he had an answer - but not the kind that made things better at all. If anything, it only raised more questions. How many other clones were unaware of their own conscience, how many had died with the blasted chip still on? Were there any like him, that awoke and decided to find a way to undo all they had done the past seven years?</p>
<p>Were there any who knew what would happen if they went to medical and went anyway?</p>
<p>“Who was your General?” Taddea finally asked, breaking the rather depressive silence. Perhaps that would bring a little nostalgia into the conversation, he figured.</p>
<p>Boil hummed. “Hold on. I have a question first.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>He glanced at the other bunk. “Who’s the brother?”</p>
<p>“Um,” Taddea said, “Twenty-Four?”</p>
<p>“That’s not his actual name,” Zhade-Ran reminded. “We don’t know that. Just… a clone. You two seemed, uh, close? You talked to each other sometimes. That was the closest I’ve ever seen clones be.”</p>
<p>“No matter how far back into the past I can think, it’s nearly impossible to make out what happened the last few months.” Boil shook his head. “I remember cheering, screaming, this weird sort of blankness. But that doesn’t matter.” He looked up, shrugging. “I figure it’ll come back to me. Right now, I’m thinking of what to <em>do</em> about it.”</p>
<p>“He’s got a scar,” Zhade-Ran spoke up, too distracted to see the death glares Taddea was giving her were not without cause. “Above his eye. Near the temple. Nasty thing. Coils down his cheek. You know anything about that?”</p>
<p>“Many of us had scars on our faces. Those helmet visors broke like transparisteel.” Boil looked a bit more jittery, glancing at the bunk briefly before turning back to look at them, a little something on his face that suggested that maybe he was daring to hope, but not quite, not yet. “You got his designation?”</p>
<p>“Uh,” Taddea hummed, racking his brain. “Hold on, it’s been a while. Well, ends in twenty-four…?”</p>
<p>Boil leaned closer, eyes glimmering with focus. “Triple-two-four?” he guessed in a low voice. “CC-2224?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Zhade-Ran answered for him. “Yeah, triple-two-four.”</p>
<p>To her confusion, Boil’s eyes widened at the words as he stared at the bunk like there was some god he didn’t even believe in hidden in there. “Holy <em>shit,</em>” he echoed again. “The Commander?”</p>
<p>“Pardon?” Taddea glanced between them two, completely and utterly lost. </p>
<p>“That’s my Commander,” Boil muttered quietly, watching Twenty-Four turn in his sleep. “Used to be, anyway. I, I can’t believe… I didn’t think he would be the one to wind up here, of all of us.”</p>
<p>"Yeah? Why not?" Taddea followed his gaze.</p>
<p>Boil was silent for a moment before he leaned back. "What do you think of the Jedi?"</p>
<p>Taddea snapped his head at him. "Um?"</p>
<p>"They say they betrayed the Republic," Zhade-Ran replied easily.</p>
<p>Boil was being careful, she realized. "And if I told you they didn't?"</p>
<p>She shrugged. "Then they didn't. Wouldn't be the first time the Empire lied. And if you really had a chip in your brains, then I guess the reason you attacked them wasn't because they had genuinely been traitors, either." To her, it really was that simple. </p>
<p>"So what you're telling me," Taddea whispered, "is that the Empire just committed mass genocide on an innocent religious group and nobody questioned that shit for <em>years</em>?"</p>
<p>Boil slumped, offering him a grim half-smile. "Yeah. That's exactly what we did."</p>
<p>"Except then it wasn't you," Taddea argued. "You can't fight a kriffing microchip, Boil."</p>
<p>"That's a nice way of thinking about it, kid. Thanks." He looked down, shaking his head slightly even as his expression didn't fall. "You asked me who my General was. His name was Obi-Wan Kenobi, full-time Negotiator and part-time the Comman-..." He raised his eyes to the other bunk, continuing softly, "Part-time his biggest pain in the ass. Always insisted on running around the cruiser with a hole in his side. Flimsiwork references or whatever. The Commander would have to drag him to medbay - not by the ear, but you know what, it came close. And then the medic would sit him down and find that they <em>both</em> had blaster wounds, and General would complain that the Commander wasn’t being careful with himself and I <em>swear</em> I could see steam rising from Cody’s ears.” He chuckled, gaze turning wistful when he looked at Twenty-Four’s bunk again.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran pressed her lips together. The more she heard of the Republic, the more vigorous her distaste got for the Empire.</p>
<p>Boil sighed, turning away. "Well, kriff, if he couldn't reject the chip, then we were doomed from the start."</p>
<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
<p>"Listen, I knew him. Knew who he was. We all did. We were <em>people</em>." Boil shook his head, his knuckles paling on his knees. "And believe me when I tell you Cody would've rather fired bolts at his own head until his brains were the same consistency as that Force-forsaken soup we had for good-day rations than harmed our General. If he touched a hair on Kenobi's head, then it wasn't Cody."</p>
<p>“You were close, huh?” Taddea’s eyes looked so big, Zhade-Ran thought.</p>
<p>Boil looked at him. “People tend to get friendly with each other when they’re convinced they’re going to die together any day at any time. Doesn’t matter if there’s rank between them or not. And me,” he added, looking a little sadly at Twenty-Four’s bunk, “Cody was a good brother to me. To the rest of us.”</p>
<p>Unwittingly, Zhade-Ran found Taddea’s hand under the blanket and squeezed as hard as she could, something cracking in there. She had him here, her vod’ika, and she was slowly coming to terms with the fact that her heart was, too, breaking for the clones. They just kept losing and losing - their families, their free will, themselves. It was an unironic tragedy. </p>
<p>"You think if I just beat him with one of those slabs they serve us for breakfast enough the chip would break?" Boil grumbled, suddenly. Zhade-Ran snorted.</p>
<p>"No, but I do think it would shatter his helmet and kill him instantly."</p>
<p>"Point considered." He sighed, rubbing between his eyes. "But not dismissed."</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The few days after that, they had some rare downtime with even fewer drills to stand through than before. They sat together again, Twenty-Four – Cody, or at least the man who used to be Cody, allegedly - used the time for the rather productive ordeal of either staring into the wall or lying down. If one didn’t know what the clones - chipped clones, Zhade-Ran hissed to herself, this truly took a lot of getting used to - were like, it would’ve almost looked like the man was relaxing just like any other sentient would.</p>
<p>Boil was bewildered by most things in the base. As soon as they landed, they’d moved to temporary bunks in the barracks on Felucia. Then, as they sat, not very sure where to start the conversation, a small droid rolled into the room and announced that Boil was being summoned to medical. </p>
<p>Taddea could almost physically feel the uneasy chill rolling down Boil’s spine.</p>
<p>“Why do you think they want you?” he asked, leaning closer. Boil chewed his lip, standing up. </p>
<p>“I don’t have a kriffing clue, and I’m not sure I want to,” he answered grimly, sliding on his vambraces and bucking up the chestplate. “Do you think they figured it out?”</p>
<p>“No,” Zhade-Ran answered. “Unless they can literally see your brain or something, you’ve done a rather good job of looking like a blank slate that they’re used to seeing. I don’t think even Twenty-Four -- Cody, uh--”</p>
<p>“Say Twenty-Four,” Boil grumbled, searching for his helmet. “That there’s not a Cody yet.”</p>
<p>“Over here, top bunk.” Taddea grabbed Boil’s helmet off the top and threw it down to him. “You think his chip will break too?”</p>
<p>“I’m counting on it,” Boil answered. “He definitely noticed something, though. Was all narrow-eyed when I was talking to him the other day.”</p>
<p>“Be careful about the things you say,” Taddea advised, met immediately with Boil’s glare. </p>
<p>“I know that, kid. I didn’t try to involve him in a heart-to-heart, it was simple nonsense. Small-talk. Food, the weather, stupid things like that.” </p>
<p>Zhade-Ran pressed her lips together, inclining her head to the side. “Might want to be wary of that, too. You’re not supposed to do small-talk.”</p>
<p>“Well, good Force,” he grumbled. “Then what <em>am</em> I supposed to do? You said me and— Twenty-Four, you said we would talk.”</p>
<p>“Listen to him, maybe. See what he has to say and go off of that,” Taddea suggested. The droid from the other side of the door gave a beep that, if translated, perhaps could’ve sounded almost like a polite cough.</p>
<p>“Roger, roger,” he answered the droid, a wry smile appearing on his face for half a second before it fell, almost like a joke he was having with himself. He stood up, waited for the door to open. “I’m coming, I’m coming. K’oyacyi, you two.”</p>
<p>Just before the door closed, Twenty-Four opened his eyes and leaned over his bunk to follow Boil’s step with his eyes for a moment. After the hiss sealed them in, he furrowed his brows and lay back down, closing his eyes again.</p>
<p>“Gar bal,” Zhade-Ran answered, belatedly. <a href="#koy" id="koyback" name="koyback"><sup>2</sup></a> She shook her head, turning Taddea. He’d adjusted to the fact that clones no longer seemed like blank meat droids rather easily, though perhaps that was because it was in his nature to humanize pretty much any sentient he came across, no matter how vulgar or violent. Compared to that, the clones were easy. It was a blessing just as potent as it was a curse.</p>
<p>“You know what,” Zhade-Ran said, surprising even herself, “I do hope he stays alive out there. Medical’s kriffing <em>terrifying</em>.”</p>
<p>Taddea laughed, his voice betraying his nerves. “You can say that again.”</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran had had more difficulties than her brother. First of all, there was the obvious fact that she was baffled when faced with Mando’a - she hadn’t heard it for perhaps a good decade, only ever spoke it to herself back when she was a bounty hunter - too young, too slow - but even that had died down. The fact that clones apparently spoke it with perfect fluency, certainly better than her right now, and she was a Mandalorian for Manda’s sake -</p>
<p>She found herself doubting it, quite often, at least before she met Boil as he truly was. Zhade-Ran’s cultural heritage was nearly lost on her, now, despite being so involved with it as a child and teenager. But once Boil appeared - and started using Mando’a in general speech when he realized Zhade-Ran could understand him - and suddenly she felt a bit closer to home, and thus found herself getting a bit attached to the clone.</p>
<p>It was a little scary, now, to look at the clone on the next bunk over and realize that he, too, was a person once. He had dreams, hopes, fears - because even that the Empire took from them - and, from what Boil had told him, he had loved and been loved. They all had.</p>
<p>The Imperial propaganda machine, Zhade-Ran thought for the n-th time this week, really did work wonders.</p>
<p>“You alright?” Taddea asked.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran wiped a hand across her face, a little annoyed. “How do you do it constantly?” she asked. Taddea opened his mouth, unsure what she wanted from him. “How do you always know when someone’s… I don’t know, upset?”</p>
<p>“I dunno.” He shrugged, a little smile spreading over his face. “I feel it? Can’t you?”</p>
<p>“No? That’s the point of communication,” she told him. “You don’t know what the other person is feeling, so you have to find out.”</p>
<p>“Ha,” Taddea hummed. “Sounds very exhausting.”</p>
<p>“You mean you can just tell.” She’d never spoken with him about this extensively. “You can just tell what the people around you are feeling.”</p>
<p>“...Slightly?” Taddea shrugged again. “It’s like… Their general mood? I don’t know, I think it’s pretty plain to see.”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay, I’ll jot that down next to the other things I didn’t know about Twi’leks.” She shook her head, looking down in exasperation. “Or perhaps you, vod’ika, are an anomaly.”</p>
<p>“Oh, who’s to tell in this hellhole,” Taddea chuckled, leaning back on his bunk. “I don’t care why I can do it. It’s freetime, Zhade-Ran, enjoy it instead of thinking about things that make you sad.”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> make me sad,” she threw it back at him with a little smile. </p>
<p>“That makes me… uh, sad.” Taddea laughed. </p>
<p>She pulled herself up to his bunk to punch at his arm. “You don’t sound sad.”</p>
<p>He avoided her hit but failed to do it in time, shoving her back down on the floor. “See? You can tell what I’m feeling too.”</p>
<p>“It’s not the same, vod’ika,” she told him, finally sitting up on her own bunk and shaking her head. “Oh, whatever it is, who cares.”</p>
<p>A beat of silence. “When do you think he’ll come back?”</p>
<p>“No idea,” Zhade-Ran confessed, and, once he looked around in pretty clear distress, soothed, “Hopefully it’ll be no time at all.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “Hopefully so.”</p>
<p>It was an anxious wait. She and Taddea had been to medical quite a few times during their careers, so to speak, in the Empire, but neither of them had a behavioural chip in their brains that they had to fake the effects of.</p>
<p>But, then again, Boil was clever. Would probably know what to say, Zhade-Ran calmed Taddea for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>He did.</p>
<p>He showed back up again in the afternoon, looking just a tad bit more tired than he did before, throwing down his helmet and leaning against the ladder to the top bunk. </p>
<p>“Well,” he said, a little smile on his face. “That was unpleasant.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” Zhade-Ran encouraged, but Taddea clicked his tongue before he could say much more.</p>
<p>“Aw, what the hell.” He grabbed Boil by the arm and pulled him onto his own bunk, next to them so they were half-sitting lengthwise. What a simple gesture to take him to the team, Zhade-Ran thought, and quietly pinched Taddea’s thigh for his efforts. “What’d they do to ya?”</p>
<p>Boil just shrugged again, cheeks having gone a little darker as soon as Taddea tugged him over. "Asked a bunch of questions. I played it straight, like I was some droid. They seemed to like it. Said they'd 'follow my recovery closely'," he mocked, exaggerating the words. "Kark, the only thing they're capable of following closely is Vader's cape." Over the few days, he had remembered nearly everything he'd done the past seven years. Most of it made him become quieter and quieter. Zhade-Ran couldn't blame him.</p>
<p>“I don’t like it,” Boil admitted, “but I did what I could. They would’ve taken me head-on if they suspected something. Didn’t even scan me, though.”</p>
<p>They would escape together. That much they’d decided. After Felucia, they’d find - </p>
<p>It was a solid plan which Boil himself suggested, and Zhade-Ran couldn’t find many faults. Get themselves into a mission to destroy a Rebel base, interrupt the process; contact the Rebellion, let them know that they had new recruits. It was more complicated than that, obviously, but it was a start.</p>
<p>All that was left was waiting - and doing their best to miss the shots they fired at the Felucian natives, in the meantime.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="mando" name="mando"></a>1. “Mando’ade” – Mandalorians, ‘Children of Mandalore’. <a href="#mandoback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="koy" name="koy"></a>2. “K’oyacyi.” “Gar bal.” – “Stay safe.” “You too.” <a href="#koyback">Back to text</a><br/>thank you for reading!! the next chapter should be up dec 10 :&gt;</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. All Bliss Ends In Remembrance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Boil had never before thought dancing around his Commander's vigilance would be a useful skill in life. Then again, Boil has so far been incorrect about a rather worrying array of things.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>okay, i am officially killed by the response to this fic!!! thank you all so much, your comments and kudos are so appreciated and help me write so much! &lt;3</p><p> </p><p>  <b>specific warnings for this chapter are as follows:<br/>-implied suicide attack (bombing)<br/>-background character death<br/>-mention of suicidal thoughts<br/>-mention of child death<br/>-depersonalization</b></p><p> </p><p>as always, please be safe!! :&gt;</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The new assignment brought them to Irnham. Long and awfully wasteful, almost a week in hyperspace, but they couldn’t shake the feeling that it was finally a lead, finally something they could use to set them forward on the road to finally putting in their two weeks for the Empire once and for all. </p><p>Something, Boil hoped, silently, that would help them break Cody’s chip. Bring him back. He was both anticipating and dreading it.</p><p>All in all, Cody had always been one of the more collected among them, even in the circle of Commanders. Son of a rancor with a tendency to very narrowly avoid getting his head cleaved off, yes, but so were the rest of them, and that complimented Kenobi’s occasional - frequent - recklessness rather seamlessly. And even so, even while he knew well of his ex-Commander’s uncanny ability to keep his calm and composure, he was worried of what the chip breaking would make him think, make him feel. </p><p>The Commander was responsible for his men and, in some way, even if he wasn't, Cody certainly <em>felt</em> responsible for Kenobi. In the Wars, if the General died, the Commander was not in for a good one. Most Generals and Commanders died together. It was a morbid fact, but it really did let the clone part of the pair off the hook easier. So what would Cody think of this, when he woke up, knowing that he hadn’t found in himself the ability to fight against the impossible and stop himself from executing the General by his own command?</p><p>Kenobi was an important piece in all this. Boil knew that what he and Cody had going on had grown beyond the bounds of professionalism, especially in the waning years of the Wars. Perhaps they could even be called friends. But Kenobi was dead, now, and Force, perhaps it would’ve been better if they’d never made a team that good. Boil had seen the frankly terrifying expression on Cody’s face after Kenobi had faked his death at the hands of Rako Hardeen and hadn’t told anyone about it. Cody had looked devastated. Nevertheless, this was not deemed to be something he could’ve prevented, and he stayed in command - naturally, the fact that the assassination was staged and Kenobi wasn’t actually dead helped things. But by the stars, the ferocity with which Cody threw himself into work before he was made aware of the entirety of the plot had been baffling. It was as if he didn’t care if he worked himself to the point of dropping dead anymore. That must’ve been Cody’s most productive few solo weeks during the entirety of the war. </p><p>So what would he do, knowing that he’d pointed his own finger at the General he cared for so much and called for his death?</p><p>Boil would have to take his blaster. </p><p><em>But the Commander,</em> he repeated to himself, trying, somehow, to ground his own thoughts, <em>was always too composed for that.</em></p><p>He shook his head, sitting in the transport, so used to the swings and dips of the air turbulence he didn’t hold on to the handles by the sides anymore. Ignoring the fact that Cody - Twenty-Four - was sitting right next to him, he tried to stare at Zhade-Ran and Taddea, muttering, caught in a hushed conversation with one another on the other side. He didn’t need to look to know what Twenty-Four was doing, that he had his empty eyes planted on the other wall of the transport, seeing nothing, thinking about nothing.</p><p>That was what he remembered the chip feeling like. Nothing but a warming sort of desire to be a <em>Good soldier, follow orders</em>. Sometimes, it was the only thing he could think of, his mind resembling an echo chamber of falsified wants and the inhuman empty space that used to be filled with memories. No, it was almost like he didn’t <em>form</em> new memories while he was chipped, but that didn’t make the fact that it all slowly came back to him over the few days after his chip broke any easier.</p><p>He remembered horrible things and his even more horrifying disinterest in his actions. Shooting a begging woman and then her screaming child, helping in eradication of entire settlements, wrenching a shaking blaster from a young scholar’s hands and beating him over the head with the handle until he was down and unmoving, the skin flooded with blood that stuck to the blaster. Boil didn’t want to remember, but he did anyway.</p><p>Bile rose in his throat, but he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He sat, emulating the posture of a <em>good soldier following orders</em>, because there were eyes anywhere, and he was still considered to be a clone only useful as a fighting force for the Army. Even Cody’s eyes were used for this purpose only, to see any malfunction within him, within them all, and to report to higher-ups. </p><p>How long ago was it, that Cody found a shiny muttering about the suffocating waves of Kamino and the quick relief of a firing blaster after the massacre of his entire batch and, instead of telling anyone (even Kenobi - whom he trusted with his life and the lives of his men, they all knew it), he talked to the kid until the lights turned back on in there? He may not have been as buddy-buddy with every soldier as Captain Rex was and didn’t raise as much hell as Commander Fox about their inevitable deaths, but he’d always been protective enough, defensive enough, responsible enough.</p><p>Could Boil have told it was the same person if he didn’t know there was a curling scar underneath that helmet? He didn’t want to admit that he already knew the answer to that.</p><p>He closed his eyes briefly and tried to think about something else. Even the food was better in the GAR, he thought, and almost made himself chuckle. The more miserable he felt, he realized, the easier it was to cope with little things like that.</p><p>Zhade-Ran was watching him, he realized. Slowly, she nodded. “We’re landing,” she spoke, and Boil felt it too, the subtle drop in his stomach at a transport reaching ground.</p><p>They stood in a line and waited their turn. The discipline was, admittedly, just as strict here as it was in the Army during the Clone Wars, but the difference was that it didn’t stop after the command to act freely was given, at least not for the clones. They continued standing in formation, in a perfect pose at attention, until they were ordered to move somewhere else.</p><p>It made Boil genuinely sick to think that he was, not so long ago, just like that. </p><p>They marched out in small groups, still quite far away from the base that had nestled underground in the middle of pretty much nowhere, in a desolate steppe so favoured by the rebels - Boil had half-genuinely begun to think they would’ve had more luck operating by simply renting a room in some bustling city or something. Really - they wouldn’t get bombed, could claim easy innocence and it’d be cleaner in general. Though, he figured grimly, explosions were still a possibility. If the Empire cared about the life of its citizens, it wouldn’t have been the Empire.</p><p>The plan was explained to them - set up explosive shells, engage the rebels, draw them out so there’s an opening, press a button - and the Rebel Alliance is suddenly down one base and a good few hundred rebels. Seamless plan, except that it wouldn’t work if the rebels had set up cameras watching the surface, or if they had informants that told them that an Imperial ship had landed at the port and they managed to evacuate, if the base was reinforced against explosive force, the little things like that. Really, just how did the Imperials get so far?</p><p>But the Commanders were confident, apparently, that this would work, having destroyed multiple bases like this before.</p><p>Soon enough, Boil and his teammates saw the catch - they were strapping the bombs to people.</p><p>Of course they were. It took Boil a frankly inhuman amount of composure not to flinch when he saw it. He turned, subtly, to look at Zhade-Ran and Taddea - <em>You stay in this place willingly?</em> Zhade-Ran did her best not to look at him as Taddea seemed just as horrified as him. </p><p>They were assigned to the clean-up squad, which would be a worse job in any situation except this. Boil remembered, faintly, jokes around the barracks, throwing around threats to assign each other to latrine duty. Well, if the only other option was to literally get yourself blown up, yeah, Boil would’ve taken the latrine duty any day of the tenday. </p><p>The main body of the troops moved out, and they stayed behind. Looking at them, Boil prayed to gods he didn’t even believe in that not as many of those people were clones as he suspected, as horrible as it was to even think that way. What other person would let themselves be turned into an explosive device willingly if not someone whose mind was taken from them, who was as good as a human punching bag to the Empire?</p><p>Good Force.</p><p>Humanity was well and truly dead in the Galaxy.</p><p>He voiced that much to Zhade-Ran and Taddea as soon as they had settled down on a hill nearby to wait for the aftermath. They were supposed to stay in the ship so they could rise as soon as the explosions took place - they were still in range here, apparently.</p><p>But they couldn’t. Taddea was fidgeting with a comm he’d bought on Coruscant the last time they were in the barracks - spent nearly all his credits on it, the poor thing - and the ship was too far away to connect to communications like this.</p><p>“Taddea’s good with his hands, especially when it’s machinery in them,” Zhade-Ran had said, and though Taddea was trying to be humble, there was a bright shine of pride in his eye. So, they settled down, sent Twenty-Four out further ahead to alert them of when the bombs would be activated so that they could leg it back to the gunship hell for leather, but hopefully that wouldn’t happen until they were done here.</p><p>“You don’t think it’ll actually be <em>that easy</em>, do you?” Zhade-Ran deadpanned as Taddea stuck the tip of his tongue out in concentration, sitting cross-legged and reminding Boil of someone else so vividly it hurt.</p><p>“You said I was good at this, so let me work,” Taddea replied, not even raising his eyes from the comm. “We don’t need to hack into their comms or anything, you know. We’re not trying to leech information off of them, we just need to establish a connection to talk to them. They can very well just disable it themselves.”</p><p>“So what are we doing?” Boil asked, glancing at Twenty-Four every few minutes. He hated how still the man was, how easily glued his eyes were to the horizon, uncaring that he was watching his own comrades marching to their deaths. “If they can just disable it, doesn’t it render the entire effort null and void?”</p><p>None of this would have flown in the Republic, in the GAR. <em>The Empire was established to preserve peace and protect the innocent, yeah, okay.</em> </p><p>“Well, my hopes are on the off chance that they don’t disable it,” Taddea answered and flinched a little bit as a spark flew a tad too close to his eyes. “And when they see that it’s coming from an Imperial source, maybe they’ll make an effort to find out what this is all about.”</p><p>“Put on your helmet,” Zhade-Ran told him dryly. He shook his head.</p><p>“Can’t see kark through the visor. I’m surprised we’re still alive with this armour.”</p><p>“Yes, you won’t be able to see kark without your eyes, too.”</p><p>“This isn’t my first intergalactic tango, Zhade-Ran, for the love of all that’s holy.” He chuckled. “Let me work.”</p><p>Such was their plan - contact the rebels and tell them they were about to get wiped off the ground - or, well, the underground, and hopefully that’d help them evacuate and save quite a few lives; besides, Zhade-Ran had remarked, that was a surefire way to ensure they wouldn’t get blasted to pieces the moment they tried to present their case to said rebels. Namely, they were planning to find a way to join them. Maybe there were some recruitment protocols or something, who knew.</p><p>So, becoming the scrap squad really was on the better side of things this fine morning. </p><p>Zhade-Ran followed Boil’s glance for a moment, watching Twenty-Four on the side of the dune warily. “How do we get rid of him?” she asked. Boil turned to her, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“Not in that way.” She waved a hand in his direction vaguely, leaning closer. “I mean - how do we lose him? He’s not going to stand around there all willy nilly while we have negotiations with the rebels or whatever.”</p><p>“I mean,” Boil muttered. “You’re right, but that’s not much of a problem. We can just stun him.”</p><p>“I don’t think the rebels will be fond of us dragging around an unconscious clone whose chip is still working. Might make them think some nasty thoughts.”</p><p>“We’ll explain.” He shrugged.</p><p>“Also, it’s another reason they might hesitate before attacking us? If they see that one of us looks injured and we’re, uh, caring for him,” Taddea said, eyes still glued to the holo. He looked frustrated.</p><p>“Focus on what you’re doing, vod’ika, we have one chance,” Zhade-Ran advised. “But yeah, I guess that’s right as well. Just when to stun him? Now?”</p><p>“Hm,” Boil mused, sitting back. “No, too early. If Taddea’s plan works out, we can tell him that we’ve detected rebels trying to escape, there’s just a few of them and the four of us will be enough to take them down. Lure him a little further away from here, stun him then.”</p><p>“And after?”</p><p>Boil sighed heavily. This was one of his main worries. “They have to find a way to de-chip him. They must have <em>something</em>, there are bounties on clones in the Rebel Alliance.”</p><p>“I’m sure they do, then,” Taddea soothed as the device made a pleasant click. “Oh! Might be onto something here.”</p><p>“You sure?” Zhade-Ran leaned closer to him, subconsciously resting her chin on his shoulder. </p><p>“Too early to tell, hold on. If I end up comming some steppe cantina, I’m going to space myself.”</p><p>“Through what exactly,” Zhade-Ran inquired dryly. Taddea ignored her.</p><p>A few tense minutes were spent in silence as Taddea’s comm kept making sounds that vaguely resembled Droid - Boil didn’t speak it, unfortunately, few clones did. Too many identical sounds that meant different things in different contexts, it was hell. He was regretting it a little, now. </p><p>“Goddess’ sake,” Taddea muttered after a while, drawing his fingers across the device as if making a tether. “What nonsense. Alright, this is – this is the last frequency I can try, but it’s also kriffing ancient. Republic era.”</p><p>“You mean,” Boil leaned closer, suddenly very anxious to see what was happening, “the exact era the rebels want to bring back?”</p><p>“Yeah, I mean, good Go--” Taddea’s jaw snapped up with a click, then a grin slowly spread across his face. “Goddamn right. This is it.”</p><p>He clicked through a few more screens, and waited for it to connect.</p><p>A fraction of a moment passed – and then there was a brief flash of light and a booming blast. </p><p>That didn’t usually happen when a comm call was answered, in Boil’s experience.</p><p>He reached for his blaster as Zhade-Ran did for hers, both turning to see what the hell had happened - were the rebels firing back? Twenty-Four had staggered back from the edge of the dune out of the sheer force of the blast.</p><p>It hit them like a missile to the neck. The explosives were set off too quickly. They’d only managed to set them up, and then they were blazing to life, and Stormtroopers all around were running for cover, running, uselessly, followed by bright flames as they were torn apart, carried far and wide.</p><p>There was always some malfunction. Wouldn’t be an Imperial assignment if there wasn’t. Really, for all their ability in propaganda and manipulation, the Empire hadn’t quite honed its skill with the integrity of its Army.</p><p>As she jumped to her feet, Zhade-Ran could only thank Manda they were far enough away. A few kilometers away, actually, even if still in range, having been looking for a way into the rebel base way ahead of time, Twenty-Four sent to scout ahead and Taddea trying his best to somehow connect to the rebel comms, warn them, perhaps, that this wasn’t just a siege, they weren’t looking for a fair fight, when all the odds were already stacked against them - </p><p>And then Twenty-Four had leapt back from the ledge of the dune they were on, hauled Boil to his feet by the back of his chestplate and yelled an order for the rest of them to get back to the gunships.</p><p>Before they could even react, the sound barrier caught up with them. Zhade-Ran had still had her helmet on out of her general dislike of being bare-faced, Taddea’s lekku, curled forward, had pressed to his auditories on instinct, sufficient protection against loud noises - but Boil, who’d taken his helmet off to look at what Taddea was doing before, wasn’t quite so lucky. He got knocked back with a high cry, covering one ear. Exhibiting more of that humane quality Zhade-Ran was so unused to seeing in clones and now knew it to be just some of their old selves shining through, she saw Twenty-Four turn on his heel and drag Boil to his feet again, pulling him forward. </p><p>She grabbed Boil’s other arm and slung it over her shoulder as he staggered, not letting him slow his step. Wordlessly, Twenty-Four did the same with the arm on his side, their first act of willful teamwork perhaps ever - and they sprinted for the ship as quickly as their legs would carry them.</p><p>Taddea, even when he’d stopped to grab his devices, caught up to them quickly and pointed toward the craft, running ahead of them and waving to the pilot to open the doors.</p><p>The message was received and the doors flew open, but the ship seemed so far away, and it was almost like Zhade-Ran could already feel the burn on her back. She tugged Boil forward roughly, her efforts doubled by Twenty-Four.</p><p>They more so launched Boil onto the platform rather than helped him up, but who was paying attention? The ship was already rising, and Twenty-Four and Zhade-Ran ended up hanging off the sides with no ledge to put their feet on. Taddea reached out to help Zhade-Ran, who grabbed his arm to keep still, hooking one foot over the edge of the gunship floor. Boil was trying his best to pick himself up, wincing in pain - Twenty-Four had no assistance, gritting his teeth as he tried to hoist himself up, fighting against the rising gunship that was mercilessly dragging him down. </p><p>They were about ten meters into the air when Twenty-Four’s fingers slipped. He cursed - in Mando’a - and looked down at the ground, grasping desperately for some sort of hold, sliding down off the side with a terrible screech of his armour against the durasteel.</p><p>“No!” Boil yelled, rolling forward and reaching out to his brother over the edge of the gunship underbelly, even as he hissed through his teeth.</p><p>Zhade-Ran echoed Twenty-Four’s curse perfectly before she knew it, and, after it’d left her mouth, she realized she’d grabbed him by the wrist on instinct and now poor Taddea was holding onto two humanoids plus the armour. He was straining, one foot propped up against the side of the door, doing his best to carry them. The flames were almost there, the fumes enveloping Zhade-Ran’s feet. </p><p>“Hold on, you sorry bastard!” she called for Twenty-Four, hoping desperately that she hadn’t just killed herself and her vod’ika because of some clone that might not even make it back to himself anyway.</p><p>Twenty-Four, to his credit, was a surprisingly still passenger, only drawing his legs up slightly to evade the winds carrying the scorching heat. Boil had kept his hand over the edge, and now the blood flowing freely from his ear was easily visible. </p><p>“Zhade-Ran!” Taddea whimpered, trying his best to pull them up but slipping further and further as their sweat mixed on their hands, seeping through the glove. He couldn’t keep this up so long, not with so much wind and such heavy weight.</p><p>With all her might, Zhade-Ran hoisted Twenty-Four up just slightly, just enough for him to see - and take - Boil’s outstretched hand. Then, through Taddea and Boil’s joint efforts, they were pulled up.</p><p>The doors slammed shut as soon as they were all in the within the walls of the small gunship.</p><p>Zhade-Ran rolled onto her back on the floor, splaying her arms to her sides. “Taddea, sabacc have me if I ever kriffin’ doubted you… Vor’e, vod’ika,” she managed, breathlessly, and looked at Boil. “And- Well, vod, I suppose.”  <a href="#vore" id="voreback" name="voreback"><sup>1</sup></a></p><p>“I’ll take that.” Boil smiled, wiping at his face. "I'd say 'oya', but I don't think my throat will hold.”</p><p>Twenty-Four looked at them and breathed in, head tilted. Thought for a long while, and just when he looked like he was about to say something --</p><p>It felt like a flying AT-ST had slammed directly into the ship. It rocked them to the sides violently, and not one of them could keep their balance, but, thankfully, they hadn’t been standing - the swing still threw them against the walls in a crunching slam.</p><p>“What the actual - !”</p><p>Zhade-Ran couldn’t tell which one of the clones that had come from, couldn’t differentiate the scream. She reached for the last place she’d seen Taddea and found that he’d been launched to the other side of the ship, but once she tried to get to him, it swung wildly once more, and --</p><p>Gas in the pipes, or perhaps the fumes. They’d taken it in. Of course it’d be explosive mixed with the fuel.</p><p>Their stupid, wonderful pilot, Zhade-Ran thought distantly and just a little sympathetically, trying to shield her head with her arms and failing anyway. He’d waited too long, and now they were going down along with the entire gunship.</p><p>The hit came as a surprise as she couldn’t sense the ground, Taddea only yelled “Brace!” from somewhere in the back, and then there was the collision, and then there was nothing.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There was something hard on her. She felt a little bit like marlello meat squashed between two bread slices, a sandwich she used to be a fan of back when she spent her credits in the fast-food places on Coruscant. Except the bread slices were the hard durasteel parts of the gunship, and she didn’t quite want to be marlello meat yet.</p><p>Slowly, Zhade-Ran pushed outward with her hands, and grunted when an even more massive weight descended on her. She would’ve sworn, but her throat was a tad too dry to even draw in a proper breath, much less punch out expletives, forcing her into a coughing fit.</p><p>Trying her damned hardest, she pushed on. Just lifting a few of those shattered pieces would’ve been enough. It seemed that only the heavier pieces were crushing her - not to the point of breaking skin, but she certainly felt like some of her organs were being rearranged. </p><p>Was there any air in here at all? She couldn’t breathe. Focused on it, closing her eyes, but it was getting more and more difficult. She strained against the weight, pushing with all her might. <em>Gaa’tayl ni, gaa’tayl ni…</em><a href="#gaa" id="gaaback" name="gaaback"><sup>2</sup></a></p><p>Then, just as she was letting go - </p><p>“Zhade-Ran,” came a call from above. Taddea’s voice, absolutely terrified. “You, uh - you alive in there?” </p><p>Now, Zhade-Ran had never really stopped to consider if she still believed in Manda or if having a few credits and staying alive were the only two dogmas she kept, but now she realized that, if she did retain that particular part of Mandalore with her, then Taddea was a living personification of it.</p><p>“Yeah,” she answered, and surprised herself by how hoarse her voice was. “Though if it’s you standing there - <em>haar’chak - </em>please get off me, I can’t breathe.”</p><p>“Oh, Goddess. Okay, hold on, hold on, I’ll get those off you,” Taddea promised, and then Zhade-Ran heard noise that sounded vaguely like stone grinding against stone - or perhaps metal against metal, she couldn’t really tell. </p><p>Then, something was scraping against her skin. She groaned, and Taddea shushed her. “Almost off, hold on, hold on.”</p><p>“I’m holding,” Zhade-Ran snapped back at him. “But could you pick up the pace a bit?”</p><p>“Here I am, doing you a good favour, and you treat me like this,” Taddea’s voice bemoaned. Well, she couldn’t have had it that bad if he had it in him to make jokes. “One would think I’m not even your - vod’ike.”</p><p>“-Ik<em>a</em>, Taddea, not <em>vod’ike</em>,” she managed. “That means ‘brothers’. Your pronunciation is not that great.”</p><p>Finally, she saw the dusty light of day, and Taddea’s orange equally sandy hands pulling what she could now see was a gray plate of durasteel off of her. “I’ll let the clone be the judge of that,” he said, reaching out a hand for her to grab. “You look nasty, everything alright?”</p><p>Zhade-Ran took his hand, and, as he pulled her up, considered her current state. Not that bad, all in all. “Could’ve been worse,” she voiced her thoughts, standing up and leaning on him for a second. There was something sticky under all her plastoid armour, but she could manage with a few cuts. Taddea steadied her. “Have you seen Boil?”</p><p>“Uh, yeah, no, I haven’t,” he answered, looking around nervously. “He should be close by? I think? I just heard your voice and came to help. Gave me a good scare down there.”</p><p>“Yeah, let’s hope the clones don’t follow my example,” she grumbled, following his glance.</p><p>The surface of the region was marred in black smudges and blown-out holes, a mix of plastoid and ash raining down from the sky. Perfect execution, she thought, annoyed, albeit a bit rushed, if she said so herself. The rebels didn’t stand a chance, even if Taddea had reached them in time. There simply wouldn’t have been enough time to get out of range, unless they had some sort of bunker underneath their normal bunkers. Which, considering the Rebel Alliance, wasn’t too unlikely.</p><p>The only reason Zhade-Ran and Taddea had even survived was because they came down in the aftermath and even the durasteel that she’d been crushed under had provided sufficient shelter. She presumed Taddea had faced something similar, except perhaps lighter - he had barely any scratches on his face, despite being helmetless.</p><p>She tilted her head, mourning their first and perhaps last chance for contact briefly before focusing back on the present. Taddea’s eyes had stuck on some other pile of rubble, but he shook his head. “Let’s go find them,” he said. Zhade-Ran nodded.</p><p>Before they could locate Boil, they found another body. Taddea leaned down to turn the person over with his boot, seeing short-cut hair and fearing the worst, but - </p><p>“Pilot’s dead,” he confirmed, that little sad note in his voice that he always took on when faced with others’ death.</p><p>Zhade-Ran nodded again, grimly. There was no chance he would’ve survived. The cockpit dove nose-first into the ground, she was surprised there was still a body to speak of. “Good man,” she remarked, and Taddea shrugged, absent-minded. </p><p>But at least it wasn’t Boil.</p><p>He found them himself, emerging from behind a particularly curved piece of the left wing, baring his teeth in disgust when he saw how close he’d been thrown to the propeller.</p><p>“Good Force,” he said, out loud. “A meter further and my arm would’ve been Hutt sludge.”</p><p>“Boil!” Taddea cried out, jogging the few steps to him. “We were worried!”</p><p>“He was worried,” Zhade-Ran corrected, easily withstanding his glare. “I figured you were a bastard too hard to kill with a simple crash.”</p><p>Boil wiped a bit of oil off his cheek and grinned. “Damn right.” He winced, clutching at his ear for a moment. “Ouch. Definitely blew a drum.”</p><p>“I think my bacta compartment’s not crushed yet…” Taddea grabbed at one of the loops on his belt, but Boil raised a hand.</p><p>“No, don’t worry about it, I’ll deal with it for a few.” He looked around, the same anxious look in his eyes that Taddea had half an hour ago. “We should save it. Have you seen the pilot? Have you seen Cody?”</p><p>Ignoring the mention of the clone’s actual name, Zhade-Ran pressed her lips together. “Unfortunately, we’ll have to make do without the pilot. Haven’t seen Twenty-Four yet, though.”</p><p>Boil closed his eyes, swearing under his breath. “Right now, really, did it have to happen right now.” He shook his head. “I swear, if the impact knocked that chip out of his head and he managed to blow his brains out before we could get to him, I’ll drag him back into his body and beat the shit out of him myself.”</p><p>Taddea paled, eyes darting around on instinct. “Maybe - Uh, maybe he won’t be so drastic.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Boil muttered. “Yeah, I’m counting on that.” What he couldn’t count on was the way Cody was with Kenobi, and he really, really didn’t want the ex-Commander to be alone when he remembered. Though it came to Boil himself rather slowly, so perhaps it would to Cody as well.</p><p>Of course, that was if he even broke the chip at this very specific time. Maybe that helmet on his head proved to be a better defense than any of them thought - maybe they’d find him muttering to himself about their supposed incompetence, how they should’ve been better - but, well, he thought bitterly, Cody slipped himself. </p><p>Twenty-Four, he jammed on his mind hard enough to sway it, <em>call him</em> <em>Twenty-Four</em>, there wasn’t any Cody in whatever was controlling his brain right now.</p><p>Maybe they wouldn’t find him at all. He tried his damned best not to think about that. What if all they saw was another crumpled pile of armour, blood splattering over the debris, the plastoid not nearly enough to save a life when faced again thousands of crushing tons of durasteel - </p><p>No. Boil had a gut feeling that spoke of hollowing dread, and, back in the GAR, the blessed GAR all of them hated with a passion and yet would’ve done anything to return to, now, he’d learned to trust that feeling. When he didn’t, once, it cost him a few muttered suspicions he didn’t voice - and then it cost him Waxer.</p><p>He just hoped to all the gods he’d ever heard of that it wouldn’t cost him another brother.</p><p>Boil did not want to be the only clone left in this mess. </p><p>As if on command, he caught a sharp intake of breath to his right, and smacked a hand to Taddea’s chestplate next to him to stop them. Zhade-Ran leaned forward, her helmet tilting to the side curiously. Boil squinted to make sense of things in spite of the dust in the air, and saw him.</p><p>He was sitting - no, more like slumped over - on a pile of shattered parts that perhaps was part of a gunship’s ceiling, once. His helmet was gone, only a plastoid shard stuck deep in one cheek, but he was alive. Very much so. His eyes darting, and dark, and alive.</p><p>Boil took one glance at him and realized he was looking at Cody.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="vore" name="vore"></a>1. “Vor’e, vod.” – “Thank you, brother.”<br/>“Oya” – “Cheers”. <a href="#voreback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="gaa" name="gaa"></a>2. “Gaa’tayl ni.” – “Help me.” <a href="#gaaback">Back to text</a><br/>haha very sorry about the cliffhanger, so to speak. thank u very much for reading, consider leaving a comment with a prediction or a note if you'd like! in my off time, i hang out on tumblr (@cillyscribbles), have a few concepts for the fics, and i’d love to yell together about star wars or anything else! :&gt;</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Gyres And Gyres Of Bleak Repetition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There is nothing else to do, in a shattered Galaxy, than hold onto one another.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey folks, please be advised that this one’s gonna be a bit more graphic than the ones before with the descriptions, <b>especially in the ruins,</b> you’ll know it when you see it.</p><p> </p><p>  <b>specific warnings for this chapter are as follows:<br/>-suicidal ideation<br/>-violent (gory) description of death<br/>-subsequent mercy kill<br/>-mention of child death (order 66)</b></p><p> </p><p>hope you enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He didn’t even look up at them. He was searching around, eyes blown wide like a startled Loth wolf, lips parted slightly in shock. That sort of deranged look Boil didn’t doubt he had himself when he first woke up, but to see it on his Commander was a whole different blow, square between the eyes.</p><p>“Wait,” Boil told the two others quietly. “I want him to see that it’s me first.”</p><p>“He’ll shoot you,” Zhade-Ran muttered. Boil looked closer and saw that she was right - Cody had a blaster in his hands, the short pistol, the model of which he so despised during the Clone Wars. Always preferred heavier weaponry, those did more damage.</p><p>But, Boil figured, remembering the accuracy with which Cody would pick off his targets, he doubted the small blaster wouldn’t do equally as much harm in his hands.</p><p>“Well, I have to try,” he muttered. “Before he starts aiming that thing other places.”</p><p>“Let him calm down,” Taddea suggested, leaning forward to stare, a little timidly, from behind Boil. </p><p>“I don’t think that's going to happen.” Boil nodded to Zhade-Ran’s words. No, he didn’t think Cody would ‘calm down’ right now, either. </p><p>When he went out to roam the ship all those days ago, he did find the medical wing. He knew what Taddea had told him was true - if he went in, if they saw him and realized he was off somehow, that he was awake and himself, they would kill him. That was what happened to waking clones. Why would they keep around a ticking time bomb?</p><p>And yet he almost went in anyway. The temptation to return to the bunk room, grab a weapon and just take on the entire ship of those bloody Imperials was stronger than he liked, then. The only reason he didn’t do it was because he recognized how disorientated he was - he didn’t know if there were more Stormtroopers that were clones on this ship, kriff, some of them could’ve been awake, same as him - he didn’t know what was going on here, just yet, and if he waited and bode his time, maybe he’d figure out a better plan. Perhaps a stronger blow to the Empire. Stars knew it deserved more than one empty cruiser, flinging itself into oblivion through uncontrolled hyperspace.</p><p>But there was no cruiser, now. He didn’t exactly want to imagine what Cody must’ve been feeling just before they found him, but he couldn’t help it. The earlier memories came back quickly after the initial confusion, so he would’ve first remembered firing on Kenobi before he recalled what was going on, perhaps remembered Boil’s more suspicious behaviours and made the connection between him and Cody himself.</p><p>No, Cody was alone with a blaster and the image of killing one of his dearest friends with no remorse nor hesitation, and Boil wasn’t about to just let him have that.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.” He stepped forward. “He needs to see something else other than his memories.”</p><p>With that, he made his way around the corner they’d frozen by, kicking a few bigger debris piles to let the figure on the rocks know he was there.</p><p>Almost immediately, he heard the click of a loaded blaster and found that he was staring up a barrel. For a moment, Cody seemed like he didn’t even know who he was looking at, glaring at him like he was a ghost.</p><p>Boil raised his hands. “Hey. Easy.”</p><p>The barrel was shaking. Very, very slightly, but shaking, nonetheless. Whether that was because of the death grip Cody had on the blaster or because he himself was quivering, Boil didn’t spend too much time wondering.</p><p>“What,” Cody managed, his voice so hoarse one would think he’d spent the past half hour screaming his lungs out. With an uncomfortable glance to the side, Boil noticed a pile of scrap someone had quite clearly dug themselves out of, and realized that might as well have been the case. “<em>What</em>.”</p><p>“I know,” Boil said, slowly lowering his hands, centimeter by centimeter. Cody didn’t move his blaster at all, so he froze halfway. “Vod, I know. Put that thing away, you’re not gonna shoot me.”</p><p>“No,” Cody said, in either agreement or refusal, it wasn't clear, but his finger on the trigger stayed frozen. </p><p>Boil could pretty much hear the gears turning in his head, the bliss of incoherence fading into a horrible realization, hitting him like one wave after another. As the tide fell back, it ripped him apart, took him to pieces and forced him to differentiate between what was of him and what was of the Empire, but who could accomplish such a feat with the river of red that flooded them in the instance of remembering? When the last image in the mirror was a mangled body of an innocent, how could one see his reflection?</p><p>“Boil.” Just the smallest glimpse of him, recognition, and it all drowned in the horror. Boil understood it, felt it himself, a creeping chill up his spine that he’d done anything to force back down because at this point any inkling of remembering ached, burned, flew ravaging through his brain like a storm of unwilling recollection. He’d rather not remember any of it, but he had to if he were to go on instead of staying frozen in the midst of the foggy cold in his head and the drying blood on his hands. It came to Cody as it came to him, in shambles, in pieces of a lost life, of a life that was perhaps better off lost, better than this. Better to stay a tattered bloody canvas facing the wall than face the world with the mess wrapped in tendrils of darkness that had become of their minds. </p><p>Cody had to get past that. Like Boil had. If not completely, at least enough to put down the blaster.</p><p>He was shaking in his grief, he could see that now, seven years of it compounded into one overwhelming state of loss and confusion. “The chip, I…”</p><p>“It’s broken,” Boil told him, raising a hand to tap a finger against his temple. “You’re you again.”</p><p>Cody’s eyes flicked to the side, twitching along with the blaster. “All that,” he managed, gesturing with his hand. “Did that really happen?”</p><p>“The Order? The Empire? Yeah.” Boil took a tentative step forward. Cody didn’t react. “Yeah, it did. Kriffing insane, isn't it."</p><p>"How," Cody spoke, slowly, even as his thoughts raced and his mind burned, "How could this happen? We were better than that."</p><p>"Apparently not." Boil pressed his lips together. "The only thing we can do is go and do our best to fix this mess."</p><p>Cody shook his head. Then, almost inaudibly, "There's no fixing this."</p><p>Boil took one more step, then another. Cody wasn't looking at him anymore, the barrel of the blaster was drooping. "It feels that way. But there are things we still have to do. We're trying to find the Rebellion right now. Once we do that…"</p><p>Cody was beginning to take on a scary resemblance to Twenty-Four. "Nothing will bring them back." Hollow. </p><p>"Right." Finally, Boil was within range. Took the blaster by the barrel, seeing no resistance from Cody, and slid it into the holster on his belt for the time being. His was destroyed in the wreckage; he and Cody would have to share for the bit. "But that's not the only way to make things right."</p><p>Cody looked back up at him with a fiery defiance, as if Boil was fundamentally misunderstanding some vital detail and hissed, "Boil, I killed--"</p><p>"Kenobi. Yeah, we did," Boil agreed, cutting him off mercilessly. "As Bly and his men killed Secura. And as Grey killed Billaba, and as Wolffe got Koon, and as Rex probably cornered little Tano." With every name, his voice got more and more hoarse. He sounded more and more like Cody as he rattled them off. And he was sure that Cody <em>knew</em>, had to know it wasn't only them that did this and so there was no point in hiding anything; stars and Force forbid he remembered when Boil wasn't there. The Commanders all knew each other better than most others, it was safer, if hurtful, to have this talk right now instead of around more Stormtroopers or an Imperial officer.</p><p>Unbeknownst to them, listening from behind the corner, Zhade-Ran couldn't help but feel a shiver going down her spine. He knew all those people, there was a story behind every word – a story that all led to a tragedy.</p><p>How did they not understand it sooner? The cogs of the Imperial machine really were unaware of their function, weren’t they.</p><p>"We killed our Generals. All of us." Boil went on. "And you know damn well what they would've wanted us to do if they were here."</p><p>Cody was still shaking his head. "You don't understand."</p><p>Boil pressed his lips into a line. "The chip in your head was no different from mine, vod." </p><p>"I'm not talking about the kriffing chip, Boil." Slowly, Cody mirrored Boil - from days, weeks, maybe even months before - he put his head in his hands and dug his nails into his face. Slightly stuffy came his voice, "I'm talking about <em>him, </em>he and, I, we..."</p><p>"Kenobi?" At a brief nod, Boil tilted his head. “What… about him and you?”</p><p>Cody raised his head, just a little. Just enough to look at Boil, lips parted slightly in horror again, eyes so wide it was surprising they stayed in their sockets. He glanced to his sides like wanted to say something but just didn’t know how, how to voice it, whether or not he should voice it.</p><p>Then, after a second, it was as if lightning struck Boil. "Oh. <em>Oh</em>. Of course." </p><p>He shook his head at Zhade-Ran and Taddea, a sort of dejected <em>can you believe this</em>. The two did not have a clue of what he was talking about, but he ignored their confusion in favour of turning to Cody again - although he had nothing to offer but a sad, nostalgic smile. "Oh, and we all took you for such a stickler for the regs."</p><p>He knew they'd been friends and he had suspicions about Cody's feelings - how could he not, it had been a topic of snarky conversation with Waxer for so long - but to think the two acted on it, that much neither of them had expected. And somehow, just like most things, the Empire twisted it all into something that only ached all the more.</p><p>"What does it matter now," Cody muttered, barely audible from behind his palms. "He's dead."</p><p>“He is.” Boil didn’t fight it. Didn’t give him hope. Even for their General, that fall had been unsurvivable. “But you knew him, then, better than any of us. You <em>know</em> he wouldn’t want you to be blaming yourself. You have to admit that. Hey.” He shook his head, a sad chuckle escaping his lips. “If he’s in that Force of his, kriff, he might just be glaring at you right now. You know, the way he did. Like you were a tooka and he was trying his best to look angry.”</p><p>“Don’t say that.” Cody raised his head, not too fond of the reminder. His eyes looked terrifying. “Don’t <em>say</em> that.”</p><p>Boil’s voice went quiet. “Then stand up, vod. Face reality. As horrible as it is. Galaxy's never had anything else for us. Here's the one way this can go - from here, straight on ahead.”</p><p>He watched Cody’s defeated frame, and waited.</p><p>He didn’t have to wait for much longer. Cody had never been one to wallow in their losses, even those that were larger than life. Pragmatism never took too long to kick in with his brother. His breathing slowed, a little tension drained from his shoulders. He looked up to face Boil, and though his eyes lacked even that tiny steely glint of determination he retained with everything else lost, he looked just a little bit more alive.</p><p>“You’re alright,” he said quietly, and Boil nearly choked on his spit. Of course Cody would get his shit back together and immediately start worrying about everyone else. Ori’vod instincts.<a href="#ori" id="oriback" name="oriback"><sup>1</sup></a></p><p>“Never been better,” Boil deadpanned, offering him a hand and pulling him up. “Other than the same mild case of ‘I’m alright and everyone else is dead, mostly’ you've got and also ‘there are shards of a metal microchip literally lodged in my brain’. You know, the usual.”</p><p>“Now that’s Boil.” There was a phantom of a smile on Cody’s face. “Never try to give me an inspirational speech again. It was dreadful.”</p><p>“If you’d prefer the package where I use you as a punching bag until you come back to your senses, I’ll gladly offer that too.” Boil crossed his arms, feigning offense. He was only half-joking; sparring was good for a grieving man from time to time. Different strokes.</p><p>Cody shook his head, swiftly dismissing the topic for now. “Who are the tykes behind the scrap?” he asked, only then looking at Zhade-Ran and Taddea. </p><p>Zhade-Ran groaned. “Manda’s sake, here we go again.”</p><p>“Come on, I’ll introduce you. For the last time, hopefully.” Boil sighed, ignoring Cody’s glance at the blaster on his belt. “Maybe you’ll even like to join our little mission.” Just before he stepped away, he put a hand on Cody’s shoulder, catching his glance. “Good to have you back, vod,” he told him. Genuinely.</p><p>Cody only nodded. Boil didn’t press - it must’ve not felt very good to be back, indeed. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“The Force works fast, but that Roggwart spawn work faster,” Cody commented grimly, glaring at the Stormtroopers surrounding the site. They were just a bit above ground level, spread out on a dune and watching the bustling below. There were gunships that had returned to the ground, enough Stormtroopers pouring out to greatly hinder the four’s efforts.</p><p>“We can just… walk past, theoretically,” Taddea said, pointing at a being manning the entrance to the remains of the rebel base. “Since, you know, scrap squad and all.”</p><p>“You and Boil will have to sneak in.” Zhade-Ran tapped on her helmet. “Twenty-Four - kriff, sorry - Cody and I can put those on and nobody will know us.”</p><p>They’d found Cody’s helmet with a few less parts than was customary (a few pieces had found their way directly into Cody’s face), but it was there. Cody had picked it up himself and pressed it under his arm automatically, surprising Boil a little. At first, even looking at his own helmet could make him feel sick, but Cody either made no connections with it that way or simply chose to lock it down until they were out of the woods.</p><p>They had no other way out of this than getting in there and figuring out if there were any survivors, same as them. Who knew – perhaps they did have those bunkers beneath bunkers, perhaps some poor soul had been lucky enough to slip underneath a pile of rubble and handle the initial fallout. It was a prime time to be presumed dead, and they intended to keep that impression just in case, hence the so-called disguises.</p><p>And if they didn’t find anyone? Boil didn’t really want to think about that outcome. They’d either have to take their chances with the locals, eventually getting themselves off the rock and figuring out where else to find Rebellion contacts or just – return to the Empire, wait for a new base and hope it goes better than it did here.</p><p>They’d make a decision if there was truly nothing left here for them, but Boil had a sneaking suspicion all four of them were far fonder of the former option. They’d had enough of the Empire to last multiple lifetimes.</p><p>“We can walk around,” Boil agreed with Zhade-Ran. “Longer way, but it’s better than them recognizing us.”</p><p>“Quick plan,” Cody praised, pushing himself up on his elbows and reaching for his helmet. “Let’s go.”</p><p>They split early enough, Boil and Taddea disappearing behind the wrecks while Cody and Zhade-Ran advanced toward the official entrance. As if she’d remembered something, Zhade-Ran nudged his arm.</p><p>“Act like you’re a droid,” was all she said.</p><p>“Pardon?”</p><p>“A droid. Act like you’re one. You folk blew up a lot of them in your day, didn’t you?” As they approached the guard, she shook her head. “Be as robotic as you can be.”</p><p>“I know what you mean,” Cody answered her in a hushed voice just before they stopped to greet the trooper, adding dryly, “But I think you underestimate the character of the droids we fought.”</p><p>The Stormtrooper looked like he would’ve preferred to be anywhere else but here, and, for a moment, Cody could sympathize rather greatly. The next moment, he remembered that he’d left his blaster with Boil, and while he was glad his brother had something to defend himself with, he seriously would’ve liked thumbing over something else than an empty holster right now. </p><p>It was a little frightening, how quickly he had made the flip from completely ignoring his fellow Stormtroopers to being so wary around them. But he supposed that it wasn't the most jarring switch his brain made today.</p><p>Cody shook his head to himself. <em>Not right now.</em></p><p>“You here for scrap?” this trooper asked, picking at his weapon out of sheer boredom.</p><p>“Yeah,” Cody replied in unison with Zhade-Ran. The two shared a look through the visors. “For scrap.”</p><p>“Numbers?” he asked absent-mindedly, eyeing his comm that he’d been looking at before they got there, clearly not thinking very much about what they were saying.</p><p>After a beat of silence, Zhade-Ran replied, “TK-7865 and TK-8694.”</p><p>Cody tilted his head at her, but the Stormtrooper seemed to buy it pretty easily. </p><p>“Rookies, eh.” His voice betrayed a grin before he let them through, “Don’t trip on the corpses.”</p><p>“Sir yes sir,” Zhade-Ran saluted, walking as quickly as her legs carried her around him and returning to Cody’s side again. As soon as they were out of his earshot, she grumbled, “Hate the bastard.”</p><p>Cody had different questions. “What were those numbers for?” </p><p>“Nal-Kera and Katka died last week, first few days in hyperspace,” Zhade-Ran replied like she’d been asked about the weather. Once he was sure there was no one around to see it, Cody lifted his helmet off, not too fond of the smell, the feel and also literally everything else. “Those were their numbers. I keep a little supply for if I need an out, you know? It’s an active mission so they’re not in the databanks yet, and no harm will come to them either way.”</p><p>“Huh.” Cody considered it. If the GAR had been anything like the IA, perhaps they would’ve done the same thing, as morbid as it sounded - and maybe it’d work even more frequently, considering they all carried the same face. </p><p>Looking around, he figured that there would've in fact been enough loot for an actual scrap squad to collect. Mostly the scorched armour of other Stormtroopers. They probably would've assigned more squads if they knew what would happen, there was too much for four people to just strip, load and carry, as they always did.</p><p>The universe just seemed kind to them today. Though if Obi-Wan was here, he'd say the Force--</p><p>He shut that down before the thought was even finished.</p><p>After a minute or so of walking, they were joined by Taddea and Boil, emerging from behind one of the wrecks and coming back to them again. “Good to see you two made it,” Boil grinned. Cody just shrugged.</p><p>“Apparently Mando here keeps a handy list of dead troopers to pick and choose from,” he replied, Boil nodding like he’d already known that. Force, just how much had he missed out on?</p><p>He remembered, distantly, dragging Boil away from the blasterfire, the man rasping out <em>"Cody--" </em>and then shutting his mouth so abruptly his teeth clacked - one could've thought he'd given away a secret.</p><p>But his name had meant nothing to him, then.</p><p>Zhade-Ran rushed them along, setting a quick pace and hissing impolite encouragements from time to time. It was reasonable. They’d get caught snooping around with no scrap if they wandered for long.</p><p>But once they were in the inner part of the ruins, there arose different concerns.</p><p>Mostly the fact that there was nothing there. At all. The base had caved in from the blast, even if it'd exploded too early, a bit further away. There were still bodies on the ground, unblinking, all dead. Cody thought, grimly, that they'd sooner find a Jedi on an Imperial Destroyer than an intact Rebel in this base.</p><p>“Alright,” Taddea muttered, looking at what remained of the desolate field around them. “Alright. Alright.”</p><p>Zhade-Ran put a hand on his shoulder, following his glance, stepping around and avoiding looking at the clones. “Calm down,” she told him, quietly. Then, louder, to the rest, “Well, appears most didn’t make it.”</p><p>“You think?” Boil jabbed, looking at the smouldering remains of the rock, half-frozen in disbelief. “Seven hells, that’s - Yeah, just the thing we needed.” He shook his head, hands on his hips. When the bombs had gone off early, he wanted, somehow, to refute the sheer destructive power and think that through some miracle they'd find someone.</p><p>“It’ll be a while until they find another one,” Zhade-Ran thought out loud. “A base, I mean. They’re well-hidden. Good for them, you know, just not - not for us.”</p><p>“We should go through the ruins,” Cody suggested. “Maybe we’ll find survivors.”</p><p>“Survivors, vod?” Boil’s voice rose half an octave. “Survivors? That thing’s blasted clear off the ground!”</p><p>Cody shrugged, empty eyes scanning over the landscape. “I’ve seen worse where there were survivors.”</p><p>“And we’ve seen better where there were none,” Taddea interrupted, but, faced with his glare, mirrored his shrug. “What? I’m not saying ‘don’t go look’. I’m saying we’re probably not going to find much.”</p><p>“Can’t know that until we try it,” Zhade-Ran agreed with Cody, stepping forward. “Right, then. Lead the way.”</p><p>“Maybe we should split again?” Boil suggested, but Cody shook his head.</p><p>“If we find a rebel, chances are there’ll be more than one. They see a Stormtrooper, they turn us into shredded cheese.”</p><p>“Imaginative,” Zhade-Ran commented, “but I agree. Better to face them as a group and see if we can negotiate. And, uh,” she added, raising her hands to her helmet, “Cody, you should probably keep that off too.”</p><p>“So they can shoot a bolt through his face?” Boil grumbled.</p><p>“So they can see that we’re clones,” Cody said grimly, “though I doubt it’ll do much. I’m sure they’ve been attacked by clones before. Stars forbid there were Jedi here.”</p><p>With that, he looked down to the ground for a moment. He was still trying, desperately, to think of the Jedi as little as possible, but stars, if they were going to make it to the Alliance, there would certainly be Jedi there. They’d have to look at them, speak to them, and all the while try not to think about their own, who they turned against, who they didn’t even hesitate to fire at, who they killed with no regret or consideration.</p><p>“Hey,” Boil said, no doubt warding off the same thoughts. “Better to go now. Before the Imperial Patrol decides we’ve been scavenging for loot too long.”</p><p>“Come, then.” After taking one look at him, Zhade-Ran took the lead, making her way over the ruins. Cody was almost thankful.</p><p>Glancing into crevices and collapsed rooms, finding the occasional crushed bodies, he grimaced. This was how they must've felt, looking for each other and then him in the ruins. He hadn’t even had it in him to stand up, after he clawed his way out of that hole and then realized that he knew who he was, and that it hurt more than anything ever had, before. It hurt in a way that he’d never felt, a burn from the inside, no way to fight it except by an equal amount of fire - </p><p>He shook his head and kept moving forward. <em>You know damn well what he would've wanted you to do if he were here, </em>Boil’s voice rang in his head - voices, of Boil, and his own, and somehow, inexplicably, Obi-Wan’s. </p><p>A halt in their pace snapped him out of his thoughts at last.</p><p>Taddea had frozen, looking over to some inconspicuous pile of debris, the orange lekku twitching ever-so-slightly. There was no movement, no noise - he was just staring like he was trying to find a physical manifestation of the Force or something. Brows furrowed in concentration.</p><p>“What’s he doing?” Cody asked Zhade-Ran, who just shrugged. </p><p>“He does that sometimes. Senses distress or something,” she told him. He looked at her, quirking a brow.</p><p>“Sounds like some Force osik to me,” he admitted. Zhade-Ran made a noise that sounded vaguely like an aborted retch.<a href="#osik" id="osikback" name="osikback"><sup>2</sup></a></p><p>“Good Manda, I hope not,” she chuckled humourlessly. “The last thing I need right now is to be hauling around a brother who can read my thoughts.”</p><p>“The Force isn’t mind-reading,” he said, on instinct, and it was like a punch to his gut. </p><p><em>I can’t read your mind, Cody, it doesn’t work that way. But I can show you the way it does, if you let me,</em> spoke a voice in his mind, and Cody just, shut his eyes, as hard as he could. It was done, it was over, it had come and it had went, and there was no way for him to change what he’d done. He’d live with it. He couldn’t afford not to.</p><p>“Whatever you say.” Zhade-Ran shook her head, cupped her hands over her mouth and called for Taddea, “Hey, vod’ika! You’d better stop being weird, you’re creeping us out!”</p><p>“No, that’s just you,” Boil chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest. He had almost made peace with the fact that they weren’t going to find anyone, that they’d would just have to wait for another mission like this, hopefully a bit more successful. Or leave, of course. The suspicion that they’d be deserting regardless of what they found arose again.</p><p>His heart ached for all the killed men, women and otherwise that just wanted a better Galaxy and had to pay the ultimate price for it. He could tell his companions were thinking similar thoughts.</p><p>Taddea’s voice was quiet, nearly inaudible from where he was, but sudden once it came.</p><p>“I think,” he said, raising a hand, a single gloved finger pointing at the pile of debris, “I think there’s someone there.”</p><p>The three exchanged a look before legging it for the pile, followed closely by Taddea. If the kid had even an ounce of whatever Force nonsense Zhade-Ran described, then it was worth checking.</p><p>“Hey, be careful,” Cody stopped them just before they reached the rocks. “If there’s someone there, <em>if</em>-”</p><p>“There is,” Taddea insisted, staring at the mess of construction parts.</p><p>“They won’t be there much longer, under that much debris,” Zhade-Ran noted. “We’d better get on with it fast. Unless it’s a blasted Weequay or something, that’s too many rocks for them to stay alive for long, much less try and attack us.”</p><p>She looked up to see her companions in unified agreement. She nodded, resolute. “Let’s move it.”</p><p>“Hold on. We have to check.” Boil moved closer to the pile, crouched down. “Be quiet.”</p><p>Tense silence fell over the ruins. So much so that it was almost uncomfortable, as they listened for a breath. Cody’s gaze drifted across the debris again as he fought back a shudder at how scarily efficient the Empire’s weapons of extermination were. This was a base that was no insignificant or temporary camp, those were heavily guarded and secured secret headquarters. And yet here they were, waiting to hear the sole survivor of this massacre that might not even be there at all. Out of hundreds, perhaps thousands. One dubious survivor.</p><p>That was what tied it all together. Massacres. That was what started it, and that was probably what would end it, however many years in the future that might be. Wherever the Empire went, it left gaping wounds and never-healing scars. It started with the clones, but the chips hadn’t only touched them. Their lasting effects had infected the entire Galaxy, made it grow so cold and so utterly disinterested in the plight of their children.</p><p><em>If there is the Force, and it is all-knowing,</em> Cody remembered asking, once, when he still believed there could be a good ending to all of this, if they just made every sacrifice count, when he still hadn’t betrayed himself and all he and his brothers stood for, <em>how can it let this happen? How can it excuse all this destruction and suffering?</em></p><p><em>That’s what I ask myself everyday as well, Cody. </em>The voice in his head was sad. But still alive. He couldn’t say the same thing now. Cody had never imagined being the one to force it into eternal silence himself. He still didn’t want to imagine it. <em>But in the end, I suppose, the Force didn’t cause this. It cannot stop what we started - that’s the Republic, the Senate, the Jedi.</em> He remembered nevertheless. <em>I am sorry the clones have this path paved out for them. None of you deserve it.</em></p><p>What other path would be fitting for him now? After this much blood had splattered on his hands, some dear to him, some completely foreign? </p><p>A wet, gurgling cough. A wheeze from underneath the pile of rubble. Cody jumped with the rest of them.</p><p>“Hear that?” Boil asked. </p><p>“I told you,” Taddea insisted.</p><p>“Okay, okay, you told us, you told us, let’s go!” Zhade-Ran surged forward, dropping next to Boil and beginning to lift the rocks and put them by her side. The three joined in, slowly making to reduce the weight on the incapacitated rebel.</p><p>Cody saw blood on one of the stones he lifted, a strange color and thickness - purplish, blue in the light, thick and sticking to the rock as he threw it away. When he looked at the form beneath, he thought he could just make out the shape of a humanoid.</p><p>What was waiting for them once they had finally dug the rebel out of their cage was a horrid, nauseating sight. A woman that seemed to have been a Chagrian, once, was lying on the ground, half-submerged in gravel and sand that was digging into the skin. Not much was left of it, however - it was torn and bloody and nearly scraped into slices. The woman’s eyes - eye - was open, but Cody suddenly had the thought that it would’ve been better if it wasn’t, if she had died on impact, even if they needed information. Anything was better than suffering like this, encased in an inescapable tomb as one’s life was slowly dripping out of their body. One of her lethorns was flattened completely, the tip and the growth and all. The very end was still twitching slightly, not a voluntary movement, just the last kick of muscle before the blood stopped entirely. The other lethorn was missing altogether, torn off, strange pus leaking out from the side of the Chagrian’s head. Cody didn’t look down at the rest of her body, he’d seen the legs crushed under the rock. She seemed to have been a markswoman, judging by the clothes. </p><p>Slowly, her gaze drifted up to them. One of her hands still clutched a small blaster, impossibly. Her chest hadn’t been crushed, perhaps that was why she had managed to survive.</p><p>She tried to raise her hand, but her shoulder was… Either dislocated or ruined completely, it was hard to tell. All she succeeded in doing was lifting her arm a few centimeters before the blaster slipped out of her grasp, falling down her side. It hit her hip and she cried out weakly, more breath than sound.</p><p>“You,” she managed with a torn lip and half her teeth. “You… kriffin’ Imperials.”</p><p>“We’re deserters,” Taddea spoke up, suddenly, leaning closer to her. “We didn’t want this to happen. We want to help.”</p><p>“Vod!” Zhade-Ran hissed, drawing him back furiously.</p><p>The Chagrian looked at him with a wide eye. “No, no… No, you’re not.”</p><p>“Haven’t been Imperial for a while now,” he assured her, freeing himself from Zhade-Ran’s grasp. “We were looking for rebels to get ourselves into the Alliance. Found you here by accident.”</p><p>It might’ve been a shake of her head if she could’ve managed it, but she didn’t have much of that left to speak of. “Clones,” she made out, her voice barely a croak, but ever-as-accusatory.</p><p>“De-chipped,” Boil was quick to confirm, tapping a finger against his temple. “Broken. That’s why we’re looking for the rebels.”</p><p>“You…” The Chagrian whispered, and it took Zhade-Ran a moment to realize the blood-shot, unblinking eye had turned to her and Taddea. It was probably meant to be a question.</p><p>“The Empire killed all we’ve lived for,” she said firmly. “My father. The only one I had. And his…” There was a clear beat of hesitation before she spoke, avoiding saying something Taddea wouldn’t want her to say. “His family. All of them.”</p><p>Taddea looked down at the ground, nodding mutely.</p><p>Cody, meanwhile, looked up at her. He hadn’t heard about that. Honestly, they knew very little about these people, other than that they were all in the same boat.</p><p>The Chagrian watched them for a bit more, wary, until, finally, her fingers moved. “I don’t,” she said, gargled, more like, “I don’t trust you. I can’t… I can’t tell. Everything’s too foggy.”</p><p>She’s dying, Cody had the distant thought, and even though he knew it before, no way this woman with so many injuries would survive for long, it still took his breath away. It was easier, even if it pained him to say, to see people falling in battle, passing like a flash of burning life before it was blown out. Now, <em>watching</em> people die, slowly pass because of so much blood loss, bones that looked more like mush than human remains and half their face being gnawed away by the rocks that had fallen on the Chagrian was a different ordeal entirely. That was where the Jedi excelled, during the Wars. They’d sit by, they’d hold their hands for moments even after death, they’d close the bodies’ eyes with a soft brush of their fingers. Cody had decided, once, that if he were to die in the Wars, all he would’ve wanted was his own General’s hand in his and the press of his palm over his eyelids. That would’ve been enough. That would’ve been better than this.</p><p>Cody forced himself to blink slowly and focus on the woman. Why in seven hells did it all constantly come back to the Jedi?</p><p>“I… Commlink.” Her voice was getting weaker by the minute. “My back pocket.”</p><p>“It won’t have been crushed?” Zhade-Ran asked. The woman didn’t seem to have the energy to even look at her. “Hey.”</p><p>“It’s our best bet,” Cody murmured.</p><p>Taddea went to reach for it before realizing what the words implied.</p><p>“We’ll have to lift you,” he said uncertainly. The woman’s glare was almost exasperated. </p><p>“I’m already dying, boy,” she reminded, and that was perhaps what sounded clearest. “It’ll make no, no, no… No difference.”</p><p>“It’ll hurt,” Taddea warned.</p><p>“It already does.”</p><p>“Alright,” Boil commanded, leaning over her. “In three. Three, two -”</p><p>Employing the well-known trick of not waiting for the count, he raised the woman - peeled her, nearly - off the ground. A few trails of blood stretched between her body and the frame of the cement she’d been knocked into for a moment as she dug what remained of her face into Boil’s hard, unwelcoming armour, and sobbed in pain. She didn’t stop even after Cody made quick work of the pocket and Boil rushed to lower her back onto ground that was a little more even, trying to shush her awkwardly.</p><p>“It’s undamaged,” Taddea said in disbelief, looking at the small caster comm in Cody’s hand.</p><p>“Pocket was reinforced,” Cody explained, turning it on. “Useful. Even if there’s immense weight on it, the defences would hold. It’s used for expensive goods, blackpills and, well, things like this. This is a contact to the Rebellion?”</p><p>“Part of them,” the woman said, barely audible through her struggle to breathe. “One of ‘em. Give it here.”</p><p>Cody held out his hand as the comm on his palm seemed to make contact, and a holoprojection of a being with a mask appeared. </p><p>“<em>Tilaka?</em>” they called. The voice was distorted, deep. It was impossible to tell what kind of species they were, other than the two growths sticking out of their head. May have been another Chagrian, a Togruta, a Devaronian. Any of them. “<em>Karabast, what in the Force happened to you?</em>”</p><p>“Well, I’m about to meet it, for one,” the Chagrian, Tilaka, replied, impossibly getting herself together one last time. “They found us. They… They found us. Everyone’s… I’m the only… Force…” </p><p>“<em>Breathe, Tilaka, stay strong, talk to me,</em>” the being rattled off, leaning closer to the holo. “<em>Is there any way - </em>any <em>way - we can still help you? We’re in Sector --</em>”</p><p>“No!” Tilaka coughed, keeping the location from reaching their ears. She looked around, the eye drifting fluidly. “I’m the only one left. Not – Not worth it. Stormtroopers… They want to talk to you.”</p><p>“<em>What?</em>” The being seemed baffled. “<em>Since when do Stormtroopers want to </em>talk<em>?</em>”</p><p>“Stormtroopers don’t,” Cody spoke, adjusting it so the being saw all of them, not just the Chagrian. “But we’re not Stormtroopers.”</p><p>The person recoiled, hissing, “<em>Clone.</em>”</p><p>“That, I am,” Cody agreed easily. “But I’m no kriffing Imperial.”</p><p>“<em>You did this, and you say you’re not Imperial?</em>”</p><p>“We tried to prevent it,” Taddea cut in, stepping into view, “But we were too late. We wanted to find the rebels so we could join them, not harm them. We found Tilaka like this. We’re very sorry.”</p><p>“<em>A man wearing Stormtrooper armour tells me he’s sorry for what the Stormtroopers have done,</em>” the being said, thoughtfully, “<em>What strange times.</em>”</p><p>“We’re not Stormtroopers,” Boil repeated. “Not anymore, at least.”</p><p>“<em>Can’t be the judge of that through a commlink, now, can I?</em>” the being said, tilting their head. <em>“Who are you, then?”</em></p><p>“Nobody, as of now,” Cody answered. “Neither here nor there. Looking to desert. Wanting to fight for the right side. Expecting neither of the successes but hoping nonetheless.”</p><p>They bowed their head, looking just a little impressed. “<em>As is right, clone.</em>” They crossed their arms, sighing.<em> “Very well. I’ll send you an agent. You try anything - attack, capture - they turn on their heel and blast you into moondust. They’ll be able to tell what you’re planning over there. If they find that you’re genuine, they bring you in. If they don’t, they’ll carve your guts out, and technically it won’t be illegal.”</em></p><p>“Point taken,” Boil muttered grimly. </p><p>“Thank you,” Cody added. “We’ll be waiting.”</p><p><em>“Yeah, they’ll be there in a few days, don’t leave the planet.”</em> The being’s hand hovered over the caster before they glanced at the view behind them. <em>“Tilaka?”</em></p><p>The Chagrian only responded with a hum.</p><p><em>“You can rest now. You’ve done a good job,”</em> the person assured. <em>“It’s been an honor, sister, and may the Force be with you.”</em></p><p>She opened her mouth for a minute. Couldn’t find herself speaking. “And you,” she finally finished. The being nodded and the holo disappeared. </p><p>Tilaka’s eye slowly floated to them, unfocused. “You,” she managed, “You’re really gonna. Join the Rebellion?”</p><p>“We are,” Taddea confirmed. “We’re not lying.”</p><p>The bloody eyelid fluttered down over the eye. “Good. Good. We need more. Will need more. Be good, yeah? Bring back the Galaxy.”</p><p>She wasn’t quite there anymore, shuddering in pain as it grew more and more unbearable, delirium having taken over her entire body, gasping between spasms and incoherent mutterings. Some of them, they could tell, were directed at them, but were no longer understandable.</p><p>“What do we,” Taddea asked breathlessly, kneeling down by the woman with one hand on her chest, “What do we do?”</p><p>Her eye flew open, and she looked at Taddea, then skimmed over the rest of them. A single clear tear rolled down her cheek. As her lips parted, a pitiful noise was ripped out of her throat - and she mouthed, <em>Please</em>. Over and over again. <em>Please, please, please.</em></p><p>Cody held out his hand to Boil. Voicelessly, the blaster was passed to him.</p><p>Cody aimed, looked her in the eye, and pulled the trigger, the noise echoing across the entire area. The Chagrian’s body twitched, and then she was limp. </p><p>Taddea flinched away, startled, hissing in surprise. “Seven hells, Cody!” </p><p>Cody wasn’t willing to admit how strange it was to hear his own name so often again. And how much he’d missed it, he wouldn’t admit that either. Now wasn’t the time nor the place.</p><p>“Give a warning next time,” Zhade-Ran told him, brows furrowed as she helped Taddea up from the body while he kept glancing back at the dead woman.</p><p>“Maybe we should,” he said, a little timidly, his lekku twitching in agitation, “bury her? Or something?” </p><p>“Let life take its course.” Zhade-Ran shook her head. “We have more pressing matters.”</p><p>“Yeah, such as probably getting out of here,” Boil hissed, ducking closer to them and nodding toward his side. “And hell for leather.”</p><p>There were two Stormtroopers approaching them, helmets off. Not clones. Cody considered jamming his own helmet back on, but decided the rushed movement would be suspicious. </p><p>“Hey!” the troopers called from afar. “What the hell was all that noise?”</p><p>“A stray rebel,” Boil answered easily, impassively. “We took care of it.”</p><p>Cody raised an eyebrow. <em>It?</em></p><p>Very subtly, Zhade-Ran inched closer to him. “Follow his lead,” she hissed to him, meaning Boil. “He learned it from you, after all.”</p><p>That made him go cold. Boil had an expression of absolute emptiness on his face, set brows and lips pressed together. Mimicking it was easy, but felt off, somehow. Unfamiliar. </p><p>“Leave it to the clones to be idiots,” one of the Stormtroopers shook his head in exasperation. “We could’ve brought it to the Commanders! See what intel it could give us, maybe get us some reward, too. Seriously?” He turned to look at Zhade-Ran and Taddea. “And why didn’t you two stop them?”</p><p>Zhade-Ran cocked her head to the side, and her face was nearly identical to Boil’s. “Wouldn’t give us anything,” she answered evenly. Cody snorted through his nose, very quietly. “Kept babbling. We put it down.”</p><p>“Huh.” He shrugged. “Well, in that case. Annoying as all hell, aren’t they.”</p><p>“Sure,” Zhade-Ran answered as if she was being asked about her ice cream preference, and then her eyes focused on something behind the Stormtroopers, gliding along the ground like she was following movement. “Oh, would you look at that. Seems that we’ve got another crawler, boys.”</p><p>Like one, the two Stormtroopers whipped around to look where she was looking, and, naturally, saw nothing.</p><p>“What?” one asked, and those were his last words before he fell with a blaster hole in his back.</p><p>Zhade-Ran, who was only aiming her blaster by the time Cody had fired his, let out a high whistle. “Deft-handed, eh,” she commended before flinching out of the way of the remaining trooper’s bolt and shooting him square in the face. Looking at the bodies on the ground, she grinned. “That’ll teach ‘em to start wearing their damned helmets.” </p><p>“Why did you kill them?” Taddea asked. He didn’t sound bothered by it, just curious. Boil was the one to answer first, despite his blaster still being somewhere out there in the wreckage.</p><p>“Because they saw us, and they can’t know we’re alive,” he said, letting Cody keep his weapon at this point, going to pick the Stormtroopers’ off them. “To the best of their knowledge, we’re dead there along with the rest of the company. It’ll make it easier to run.”</p><p>“Huh,” Taddea drawled. “Then we should probably run right now, before they turn up to see where their friends have gone.”</p><p>“Good idea,” Zhade-Ran agreed, looking at the clones for their judgement. “Anything else to do here, boys?”</p><p>“Nothing at all, it seems,” Cody said, agreeing to Boil’s idea. “Let’s get out there and find some shade, shall we?”</p><p>They turned to a jog away from the scorched steppe, further into the rockier lands. Debris rained everywhere, but there were more caves, more protection from the wind and most importantly - peering eyes.</p><p>“I swear, if that rebel takes until it starts raining,” Zhade-Ran remarked as they kept a neat line between each other to take up as little space as possible, “...They’d better not.”</p><p>Cody almost chuckled, following along - feeling, at last, that he <em>had</em> somewhere to follow.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They slowed their step eventually, then walked until it was nighttime, then sat down around one of the farther-flung gunships - by the looks of it, a dented wing. Taddea suggested a campfire, ‘or something’, and was quickly shot down by the three of them - not yet, not while the Empire was still so close. They couldn’t let themselves be caught so early on and they couldn’t afford to put their rebel contact in danger, either. </p><p>So, they sat together around one of the scrap piles like it was some sort of pitiful shrine. Sat in silence, at first, unsure of how to proceed with one another once they had nothing to do but wait, nowhere to hurry, stay there and just - co-exist.</p><p>It occurred to Cody just how little he knew about the world he lived in, now. There was too much darkness in the Galaxy, that much he could already sense and recall. But it was the little things that escaped him, which he hated most of all. He couldn’t remember how exactly the IA operated, what its policies were. He couldn’t recall or perhaps didn’t even know what the ruling heads of the Empire were, other than the dark-clad Sith and his apprentice - oh, those he remembered. He remembered feeling strange around them, standing on the bridge with his squad, lifeless but still wondering somewhere in there, in the void, why he could not stand them.</p><p>He’d have to find out so much still, and he was sure he wouldn’t like it - but he could just <em>ask</em>, now, perhaps that’d come in handy.</p><p>“So,” Zhade-Ran started, probably disregarding all his concerns simultaneously. “What a talk that was, eh.”</p><p>“Sure,” Boil agreed. “Bit, uh, bit jarring. Seeing what’s going on. Again.” He sighed.</p><p>“Right,” Taddea agreed whole-heartedly. “That was a bit... unpleasant.” A <em>bit</em>.</p><p>Clearing her throat, Zhade-Ran asked, “So, why don’t they trust you? The rebels, I mean. Listen, I know what those chips made you do, but they didn’t seem convinced you were your own people. What’s there to fear?”</p><p>“If that person was a Jedi, stars forbid,” Boil spoke thoughtfully, “then they’d be perfectly within their right to want more proof.”</p><p>“What proof? You spoke to them.” Zhade-Ran shook her head. “What else do they want?”</p><p>“You know how drastically it turned us, the chip. But you don’t know how suddenly we killed them, and with how little remorse, and we weren’t above manipulation to get them to believe we weren’t even chipped, if the need arose,” Boil told them. “You do know who the Jedi were, right?”</p><p>“Sure, my people got half their population massacred by Jedi eons ago,” she answered easily. “I got horror stories told to me about those folks.”</p><p>Boil pressed his lips together, looking deliberately away. “Huh.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Zhade-Ran added on, doing her honest best to not start smiling. “Puts things in perspective, eh.”</p><p>“Not the way we knew them, though,” Cody butted into the conversation with the usual urge to defend what he cared about. “They were peacekeepers.”</p><p>“And war generals at the same time? Either I need a more detailed breakdown or something doesn’t add up here, my friend,” she commented, though her eyes focused on him, willing to listen.</p><p>“The Senate - of the Republic, not Imperial, you know, the one that still could make things happen sometimes - the Jedi had allowed it to control their Order too closely, and paid the price in war.” He shrugged. “Sure, they were war generals. Most of them were shit at it at first, too, we had to show them the ropes, because they had literally never been trained for that. Their talents lay with diplomacy, negotiation, verbal conflict. They had rules against using their lightsabers unless necessary to protect themselves or others -” He glanced at the two, searching. “You have to know those, okay, glowing sticks? You know what a lightsaber is, yeah?”</p><p>Taddea laughed, confirming, “We know what a lightsaber is. Haven’t seen it, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”</p><p>“Kid,” Boil interjected, leaning forward. “How old even were you when the Republic fell?”</p><p>“Uh,” Taddea drawled. “Ten? Eleven? Wasn’t an important date for my family, personally. We were getting bombed anyway, the Separatists or the Empire, didn’t exactly make much of a difference.”</p><p>“Kriffin’ stars,” Boil muttered, nudging Cody in the side. “You keep on talking before this gets depressing.”</p><p>“It’s going to get depressing either way,” Cody answered him grimly. No way it wouldn’t if he were to keep on talking about their Jedi.</p><p>“Tell us,” Zhade-Ran asked, nonetheless. “If we’re waiting for a rebel. I wanna know the right side of history.”</p><p>Cody mulled over her words a bit, then nodded his head. “Alright, that’s reasonable.” He sighed. “As I said, they were peacekeepers and joined the Wars on the Senate’s behalf. Their Order had shifted from an autonomous religious organization to a puppet show for the bureaucrats. And, unwilling to fall out of favour during those times, they conceded that they’d lead our battalions.” </p><p>“And were shit at it, you said?” Zhade-Ran reminded, a crooked, unhappy smile on her face.</p><p>Cody shrugged. “They weren’t soldiers. They were never supposed to be soldiers. If the war hadn’t been, well, a ploy, then after we won - we would’ve won, did you know that? Came a hair breadth’s close - after we won, they probably would’ve committed to some serious reform to distance themselves from the system.”</p><p>“You were close enough to know that?” Zhade-Ran raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Sure,” Cody answered her easily. “The Commanders knew their Generals. The Commanders also knew each other, and we liked to talk.”</p><p>Taddea chuckled. “I keep forgetting you were a Commander. Bit scary.”</p><p>“I’m the last thing you should be scared of right now,” Cody deadpanned, continuing on, “But, as you know, the plan didn’t quite work out, our brains got fried and the Jedi got the short end of the stick.”</p><p>“Blunt <em>and</em> honest,” Zhade-Ran remarked, her already small smile turning sour. “I’m sorry about that.”</p><p>“And it doesn’t describe what happened very well,” Cody admitted with a sigh. “It was not a - not a pretty few months, when we were hunting down the remains of the Order.”</p><p>“The 501<sup>st</sup> marched on their Temple,” Boil muttered. Cody turned to him, nodding grimly.</p><p>“That’s where the healers would’ve all been, isn’t it?” Taddea jumped in, eyes wide.</p><p>“Uh, yes?”</p><p>“That’s disgusting,” he proclaimed, crossing his arms. “Can’t touch the healers. Not even the Imperials with an ounce of self-respect harm the rebel healers.”</p><p>“They do,” Zhade-Ran muttered to his side. “They really do, all of them, Tadd’ika.”</p><p>“Sure, there were the healers in the Temple,” Cody agreed, taking a deep breath before continuing. “But not only that. That’s where the children were, too.”</p><p>Deafening silence settled over the campsite. Taddea’s jaw dropped as Zhade-Ran’s eyes widened.</p><p>“Excuse me,” she said, and even Taddea had never heard her voice that small. “The children? They had kids?”</p><p>Cody looked down. “Of course they had kids. Raised them well. Shipped them off too young,” <em>like little Commander Tano</em>, was what he didn’t say, “but times were hard. In everything else, raised them well.”</p><p>“And you…” Zhade-Ran leaned forward, brushing her thumb over her throat. “...All of them?”</p><p>“Every single one.” Cody was surprised to hear how cold his own voice sounded. Then again, he hadn’t seen the look on the kids’ faces. Was spared at least that pleasantry. The fact that his other brothers weren’t was tearing him apart. “The Jedi were skilled, and, after a year or so, kept up with the war strategies like they were born speaking field planning, but their kids were - just that. They were kids.” He shook his head, remembering the reports, the news. Twenty-Four - that’s what they called him, apparently, a fitting name; he didn’t deserve his own after what he’d done - Twenty-Four wasn’t bothered by them, but Cody was. Very much so. “Kriff.” He threw his arms over his head in exasperation. “I know it’s ridiculous, but those bastards of banthas could’ve put most of those kids on the streets of Coruscant and had no resurgence from the Jedi Order! They were young enough!”</p><p>“It is ridiculous,” she agreed, shrugging helplessly. “But it’s the Empire.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Cody muttered. “It’s the Empire.”</p><p>“Kriff the Empire,” Boil added. Cody nodded. “Killing kids. What kinda kriffing…”</p><p>They sat, silently, for a little bit more, all nearly equally horrified at the tales and the memories. Finally, Zhade-Ran cleared her throat, perhaps to move away from the topic - they could’ve used that, all of them.</p><p>"Well… That'll put a jet up your ass," she said quietly, intending it to be sympathetic - but Cody's eyebrows shot up so high and so quickly she was surprised they stayed on his face.</p><p>"A <em>what</em> up my what?" he echoed.</p><p>"A jet up your-? It's a Mando saying!"</p><p>Boil and Cody shared a look.</p><p>"I don't think either of us has ever heard of it."</p><p>"Has either of you ever even been on Mandalore?"</p><p>"...Briefly?"</p><p>"Briefly! Alright, I wasn't aware I was talking to a couple of <em>tourists</em>." Zhade-Ran put her hands on her hips, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. "No, seriously. Briefly…" She shook her head in disbelief. "Boy, once I finally get my Mando’a back together, remind me to teach you all minus Taddea all the wonders of Mandalorian phrasals."</p><p>"Minus me?"</p><p>"Yeah. As your ori'vod, I can't do it in good conscience,” she explained, laughing as she got kneed in the thigh.</p><p>“Don’t mother me.”</p><p>“I’m not. I’m just saying - I’m older than you, I choose the learning material.” This time, Zhade-Ran kicked back.</p><p>“Ow!” Taddea glared. “That was unnecessary,” he announced, in spite of doing just that multiple times mere minutes before.</p><p>Zhade-Ran rolled her eyes. “Kiddo.”</p><p>“I told you to stop mothering me,” Taddea cut back.</p><p>“What?” Her eyes widened in offense. “What, I’m- That’s an insult! I’m insulting you!”</p><p>Watching them, perhaps Cody would’ve smiled. Perhaps, once, they’d remind him of his own brothers, but even with Boil by his side, he couldn’t help but feel dejected at the image instead. To think they were once able to discuss casualties one minute and try to ward off excess thoughts with morbid laughter the next. To think they never could’ve imagined something like this happening - if Cody had been told he was fated to kill his Jedi and become a mindless droid for a Sith dictatorship, say, eight years ago, he would’ve sent whoever it was that told him this to rehab regarding the overuse of death sticks. Now, though?</p><p>How strange were the tides of life. Strange and suffocating.</p><p>He didn’t realize Boil had shifted closer to him until he met his eyes and saw concern.</p><p>“You alright?”</p><p>“As alright as it’ll get,” Cody replied, shrugging. </p><p>A moment of silence, and, “You were staring into space. Want to talk about it?”</p><p>He really, really didn’t. But his voice had a mind of its own, filled with regrets and dying brothers and the image of beige robes tumbling and falling with him down to his death.</p><p>"What do you reckon he must've even been thinking? Just before… Just before?" Cody said, then, before he could stop himself. Boil glanced at him, biting his lip. They both knew who he was referring to.</p><p>"I reckon <em>you</em> shouldn't be thinking about that," he offered. "It won't help you."</p><p>Cody shrugged, staring straight ahead with a blank expression. "Can't help it."</p><p>"In that case." Boil looked up, breathing out steadily. "Honestly, I don't think he had time to think. Just, falling, probably got startled or confused or whatever, and…" He gestured vaguely, turning to watch his former Commander. "...And that was it. Gone."</p><p>"Gone." Cody rubbed a hand over his eyes, sighing. "Just like that. Kriff, this really isn't helping."</p><p>"You'll deal," Boil murmured. "We all do eventually."</p><p>Cody looked at him like he was still seeing Waxer by his side and nodded grimly. "Guess we do."</p><p>With that, he turned to look up at the sky again. It was better, he supposed, than staring at the ground and losing himself to thought. Boil was right. He’d have to face it, eventually, fully and deeply and in a way that would ruin him and perhaps he couldn’t build himself the same again. But that wasn’t to be done right now. That wasn’t to be done for as long as he could hold out without thinking about how many brothers were left, now, and how many had died, in how many horrific ways. For as long as he could hold out without thinking about what could’ve been, a Galaxy that sang peace and justice instead of being swallowed in unyielding darkness. For as long as he could hold out taking Boil’s advice and perhaps forcing himself to believe that his Jedi had died quickly, died on impact, a broken body sinking to the bottom of the river. That he hadn’t drowned in pain, clawing at his throat, drawing his last breaths from the Force before it forsook him too. That he was dead before he had the time to realize what they had done to him. The people who he’d fought with, fought for, for three years, the people he called friends and Cody – who he called his real name, and so many beautiful others - Cody hoped Obi-Wan died before he knew that they were the ones to kill him.</p><p>It was selfish of him. That much he recognized. But without it, he couldn’t bear to even think about Obi-Wan at all.</p><p>Suddenly, before he could get too deep into it, a figure dropped down in front of him, crossing her legs. Cody jerked back before he recognized her and realized he’d been staring a thousand miles into the distance again, and perhaps his vision had been blurring a little bit, and someone must’ve called his name, but he couldn’t remember who it was.</p><p>She didn’t worry about all that.</p><p>"You speak Mando'a," Zhade-Ran said. Cody considered her, narrowing his eyes. It wasn't a question. A statement, rather.</p><p>"I--"</p><p>"I spoke Mando'a, once." She sat in front of him, legs crossed and hands in front of her and, oh, that reminded him of something. "Teach me so I can speak it again." At his raised eyebrow, she added, quietly, "Gedet'ye."<a href="#ged" id="gedback" name="gedback"><sup>3</sup></a></p><p>A distraction, she was trying to distract him. Cody had spent far too much time with his brothers, as they were years ago, not to know when he was being offered half-assed bait.</p><p>This time, he took a good look at the Devaronian, watched as she set her jaw, as her eyes focused on him with all their bleeding intensity, and as she stared back.</p><p>Cody took the bait.</p><p>"Jate, Zhade-Ran," he said. She grinned. "How much do you remember?"<a href="#jate" id="jateback" name="jateback"><sup>4</sup></a></p><p>Well, as it turned out, she did remember quite a bit, even if she downplayed it. All Cody had to do, pretty much, was start a conversation, and suddenly it was half-an-hour later and they were arguing over semantics; while Zhade-Ran had the high ground, being a Mandalorian and all, Cody, for the record, spoke with clearer fluency than she did at this point.</p><p>“Beroyab’ is a perfectly acceptable way to say ‘bounty-hunter’s’,” Zhade-Ran hissed. Cody had crossed his arms, looking like he was a second or so away to lunging at her.</p><p>“You sound like you’re from the Old Republic,” he said. “That’s archaic, and I haven’t even spoken Mando’a in seven years.”</p><p>“Okay, Jatne Vod Mando’a Expert, Sir,” she sneered, mirroring his gesture. “So what, you’re gonna go around saying ‘be’beroya’? Like you’re an Endoran sheep?”<a href="#be" id="beback" name="beback"><sup>5</sup></a></p><p>“Excuse me,” Cody bristled, “That’s better than sounding like you’re adding a possessive twice.”</p><p>“‘Roya’ doesn’t even <em>mean </em>anythi--”</p><p>“Or! Or,” Taddea jumped in, a little uncomfortable with how familiar the situation was to him. Sure, Zhade-Ran wasn’t butting heads with Twenty-Four anymore, she wasn’t seriously about to fight Cody, but it still made him tick. “We could agree that both of those words work in the discussed situation?”</p><p>“No?” Cody raised an eyebrow. “Do you even speak Mando’a?”</p><p>“Well, we now know <em>you</em> don’t,” Zhade-Ran cut in. He turned to her.</p><p>“Weren’t you the one that came to <em>me</em> for teaching?” he questioned innocently. Zhade-Ran opened her mouth, closed it. Stayed quiet for a moment.</p><p>“Fine, gar mir’sheb, I’ll accept a draw this time.” She groaned, covering her eyes. “What region Mandos did even <em>teach</em> you?” <a href="#gar" id="garback" name="garback"><sup>6</sup></a></p><p>“Oh, so you can’t say “bounty hunter’s” but you can swear?” Cody tilted his head. She dropped her hand, glaring at him.</p><p>“I can, in fact, say “bounty hunter’s”, you absolute ass,” she stated, his chuckle only infuriating her further. “And that isn’t even a swear word. I’ve already said I’m not swearing in front of the kid.”</p><p>“Zhade-Ran, I will shave you in your sleep,” Taddea deadpanned. </p><p>“Looking forward to it, vod’ika.”</p><p>“On that note,” Boil cut in, settling by Cody, “we should probably sleep as well.”</p><p>After a few murmurs of agreement, they all curled up in their respective little spaces.</p><p>“I’ve got the first watch,” Zhade-Ran said, nodding to the rest of them. She was still at least somewhat sharp-eyed.</p><p>The night was bound to be cold, as it tended to be on most planets where the day brought scorching heat, but something about this one felt off. Like it was even colder than the hyperspace that had been so familiar to them in their younger age.</p><p>“How long do you reckon it’ll take?” Boil muttered to him, just before he closed his eyes. “For the rebel to get here, I mean.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Cody admitted, staring into the ground until the corners of his vision started blurring. “But I’ll wait for as long as it does.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="ori" name="ori"></a>1. Ori’vod – older sibling. <a href="#oriback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="osik" name="osik"></a>2. Osik – nonsense, shit. <a href="#osikback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="ged" name="ged"></a>3. Gedet'ye - Please. <a href="#gedback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="jate" name="jate"></a>4. Jate – Good. <a href="#jateback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="be" name="be"></a>5. Be’beroya/Beroyab’ - Both perfectly acceptable ways of saying “bounty hunter’s”. Or at least the author hopes so, otherwise this will be very awkward.<br/>   Jatne vod – Sir (non-military). <a href="#beback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="gar" name="gar"></a>6. Gar mir’sheb - “You smartass.” <a href="#garback">Back to text</a><br/>povs? i think you mean parkour (juggles people wildly)</p><p>thank you so much for reading this chapter! i hope it isn't too much of a drag :&gt;&gt;</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Upon The Ghost With Aching Eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In every Galaxy, in every universe, one thing never changes - there is always, always the fleeting presence of hope.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this chapter has no explicit warnings.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The third night in a row was still clouded, overcast by the thick fumes of the explosions and puffs of dark smoke that would surely take more than a few days to clear. Cody frowned, poking at the little fire they had going. The Empire was certainly more destructive than the Republic had been - but, looking on to the wreckage and the unending gray sky, he wondered if any of it had been worth it.</p>
<p>It was all leading up to something as horrible as genocide, and that was perhaps the Empire’s most destructive act of all. Self-destructive, too, he thought bitterly. Through the massacring of a people, women, men, otherwise, children and all, they showed their true colours before the Empire truly even existed, thus bearing a thousand little rebellions and the Alliance to boot.</p>
<p>Ironic.</p>
<p>He shook his head, looking at the fire, not really sure what he expected to see in it. The flames were small, not meant to alert, only to give the four companions some warmth in the night - they’d worried, at first, that a campfire would be too noticeable, but the machinery was still up in flames, three days later. Engine fires still raged all around them, albeit now dulling down to a simmer, bright as it was but not quite dangerous. They could afford to spare themselves some warmth - and, after what happened here, they thought that maybe they even deserved it.</p>
<p>They were running out of rations, but there was plenty to find in the wreckage. Still, personally, Cody would’ve preferred if the rebels got here sooner rather than later - though, of course, who knew what they were up to. Busy people, he presumed. Working hard to undo what the Empire was running its army into the ground to do.</p>
<p>Not for the first time, Cody failed to see the reason in all of it. What was the point in this, needless destruction and needless death? An unnecessary sacrifice was always framed as the most honourable. How many chances did they have left to make things right before the Empire ruled the entirety of the Galaxy? How many battles did they have left, how many could they afford to lose and how many did the fate of the Galaxy stand on?</p>
<p>It was always up to chance, which, frankly, infuriated him. Always up to something outside everyone’s control - and always so obvious in hindsight. Yes, he figured, hindsight was the worst sentient ability of them all.</p>
<p>Boil had told him to try and stop thinking about it, but it wasn’t quite as easy as the man made it out to be. He’d been asleep, in a way, in a comatose state for seven years, and he remembered everything he’d rather forget. </p>
<p>He frowned, looking on at Boil. Boil had been alone. Cody shook his head, trying not to think of his own terror when he looked down at his hands, found himself back in his head, and then felt so sick all of a sudden he genuinely thought that gut-wrenching pain would knock him out. </p>
<p>He remembered, most of all, seeing the sliver of blue falling into a river and a body breaking on the rocks, and then the sliver was gone, and then Cody was <em>gone</em>.</p>
<p>Really, what could’ve been left of him after he killed someone he loved that much? And if there had been a way to resist it, somehow, to overcome the chip’s control for even a single moment, then kriff, he knew already he’d not forgive himself for the rest of his life. How can anyone live with that, he asked the gray sky. With the knowledge that they turned on those they treasured as much as their own family and put their finger on the trigger and shot, and shot, and shot, until there was nothing more than blood in the water and a cloak riddled with holes, and they’d never found a body but he’d seen the shock, he’d seen the confusion in the sliver of blue, he’d physically felt the briefest moment of the most instinctual horror from the warm presence that Obi-Wan had still had in his mind, and the connection was severed because he <em>died</em>, then, his last mark on Cody’s mind a numbing sting of terror - </p>
<p>Cody pressed his eyes shut. Boil was right. This wasn’t going to get any better if he kept thinking like this, sitting by the fire and looking at the sky, so used to having someone by his side, and it was usually a brother like right now but sometimes it was Obi-Wan and he’d learnt to keep those memories close to his heart but never let them reach his mind – he’d hate himself for remembering them fondly. Did death truly sour all he held dear so much? He could still recall Boil and Waxer arguing on whether the former could technically boil rations and, if so, whether they’d still be edible, if a little mushier, (<em>Disgusting</em>, Waxer said, <em>I’d literally rather die than eat rations in liquid form, Boil, they already taste like shit, why do you have to do this -</em>), and that glimpse into the past still brought a small smile to his face. He’d run from Boil’s culinary masterpieces as far as any other vod would.</p>
<p>But why, then, did his chest get so tight, otherwise? When he thought of Obi-Wan, every single one of those thoughts hurt so bad it was a nearly physical ache in his heart. None of them were preserved the way he’d like them to be - thinking of his horrible horrible tea that had far too many leaves to be drinkable brought a sour taste to his mouth, thinking of the stories he’d told Cody of planets he hadn’t seen yet, asking if he’d like to go there someday only made him miss a place he’d never been to, (<em>Maybe after the war,</em> Obi-Wan always told him, that wistful expression on his face that made his eyes look bigger and his smile a little softer, <em>I can take you there, if you’d like.</em> He always agreed. It was a nice dream,) quiet laughter at Cody’s grumbling about the newest animal Taika had managed to get himself bitten by blurred his vision instead, and oh, Force forgive him, the moment he remembered how gentle Obi-Wan’s hands had always been on him when he brushed his palms against Cody’s cheeks and kissed him slow and promising, he felt like he was going to drop and never get up.</p>
<p>And Cody killed him. Cody killed all that.</p>
<p>He looked down to stare at the horizon instead. The sky held too many memories, the sky was a symbol of hope, of ascension to something brighter, the hope of morning, the glimpse of dawn. All that only brought him bitterness and sorrow now. Where would they go? What would they be made to do, once they were in the Rebellion? Would they even make it there, or be deemed too dysfunctional, too useless?</p>
<p>Cody consciously pried his brain from comparing his image of command to the Kaminoans. Anything was better than the Empire, and the Alliance was supposed to be its opposite. If he could spend the rest of his life throwing himself into work to undo the horrible things he’s done - the chip’s done, yes, but in <em>his</em> body, <em>his</em> mind - he’d be… Well, he wouldn’t be happy. He wasn’t quite sure if he could be happy, after everything. But he’d be content in the justice of such an existence. Cody could always find it within himself to live on with the weight of the world on his shoulders. </p>
<p>Where was the world now?</p>
<p>He closed his eyes and felt something like a tentative sense of serenity brushing against his core. It surprised him with its fullness, the fondness with which it curled around his heart. Perhaps thinking about those things would help him figure others out, he thought. But they were no doubt exhausting, and he could only allow himself that much more before he lost his focus and started spiralling down. That was never good.</p>
<p>His watch would soon be over, anyway. It was the second-to-last, Zhade-Ran having sleepily shaken him awake and dropped down next to Taddea right about three hours prior. Cody rested his blaster across his knees, safety on but his finger reflexively pressed against the trigger, and watched the sunrise.</p>
<p>After a few minutes - or perhaps another hour, he didn’t care to check - the sound of soft footsteps caught his attention, kicking his dozing brain once again into acute alertness. Slowly, he turned his head toward the source, careful not to move too much in case whoever their visitor was hadn’t seen him yet.</p>
<p>The campfire was a little further away from where Cody’s companions were sleeping, so the person would nevertheless see him first. The disadvantage to that was that if Cody wanted to wake the trio up, he’d have to yell for them.</p>
<p>The person, whoever they were, seemed to be bipedal by the sound of their steps, and in no great hurry. They were walking through the wreckage from the direction of the closest city, something clicking quietly against metal with every second step. Cody quickly devised a plan - if it was just some scavenger, he could remain hidden. If it wasn’t - if it was a Stormtrooper or someone who was looking to bring home a few smoking helmets - well, Cody would turn the safety off his blaster without even having to think about it.</p>
<p>What he hadn’t thought about was the fact that the person was neither.</p>
<p>They emerged from behind one of the wrecks of the gunships, and Cody finally got a look at their visitor, clad almost entirely in soft brown clothing so favoured by the locals - and also just so happening to be great camouflage against the red sand and clay. They had one hand raised just the slightest bit as if checking for wind, and their hood concealed their face rather well - from what Cody could see, they were wearing a mask or something similar underneath that hid the features even better. They were making a beeline right to their camp in slow, unassuming steps, giving the illusion of happenstance.</p>
<p>Cody gripped his blaster a little tighter, not aiming it quite yet, when he saw it.</p>
<p>He knew the soft clicking was familiar - it was coming from a lightsaber tapping lightly against the person’s thigh from where it was attached to their belt.</p>
<p>A Jedi, perhaps their rebel - or at least someone who carried a lightsaber with the right holster. </p>
<p>The person stopped just shy of about five meters from the campfire, never giving a sign that they would as much as acknowledge Cody. Whether that meant they’d known he was there before he even saw them or that they were just expecting it, he didn’t think about too much. Cody’s blaster ended up pointing somewhere vaguely to their side.</p>
<p>“That’s unnecessary,” they said, quietly, raising the other hand about to their waist to show Cody they weren’t reaching for a weapon. Their voice was a deep, distorted hum, doubled, and now Cody realized the purpose of the mask underneath the person’s hood. “I’m your contact. I’m here to bring you to the Alliance.” The mask, albeit a pale gray, reflected no light of the morning and was marked by dark paint – lines streaked across the eyes and down the face, a tall protrusion crawling up their forehead. It reminded Cody of something, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it.</p>
<p>“How do we know that?” he demanded. The person tilted their head.</p>
<p>“I was once a Jedi.” A pause. “Though I suppose that just my lightsaber won’t be enough to prove that.”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t think so,” Cody agreed. “Maybe your face is, though.”</p>
<p>Their voices were quiet enough not to wake the rest, although Cody had no idea why he wasn’t doing just that. The person’s chuckle sounded strange and came close to waking at least one of Cody’s companions, judging from the shuffling behind him. Probably Boil. The man slept with one eye open.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid that won’t be possible right now.” They slowly lowered their hands, watching out for Cody’s reaction. They made no effort to take the lightsaber or pull a hidden blaster out of anywhere, so Cody allowed it. “I’d prefer to keep myself in anonymity until we’re back to Alliance territory and preferably around a few more rebels.”</p>
<p>“You don’t trust us either,” Cody deduced, and the person shrugged lightly. </p>
<p>“I was once a Jedi.”</p>
<p>And all was said with that. Cody couldn’t imagine any Jedi feeling comfortable facing a clone right now, not after what had happened. He wondered distantly why the Rebellion would send a Jedi, of all people, before he remembered that if there was a need to check whether they were deceiving the rebels or not, a Jedi was perfect. Then, slowly, he lowered his blaster as well.</p>
<p>“We’ll have to work with that.” An idea came to him, then, and he grabbed around the ground before finding a rock. The Jedi watched him with some curiosity as he held it in his open palm. The stone was gray and smooth, but encased almost entirely in hard dry clay. Cody looked up at the Jedi. “Can you…?”</p>
<p>“Oh, certainly.” The Jedi held out their hand, splaying the fingers just the slightest bit, and tugged up at the air like they were puppeteering a doll. Surely enough, the rock was slowly lifted off Cody’s hand, floating twenty or so centimeters above, somewhere around his eye level. </p>
<p>Cody looked on idly, leaning back from the rock a bit when it got too close to his visor but keeping his hand in place. He watched the Jedi more than he did the stone, nodding once after a few seconds or so and raising his hand to take it out of the air when the Jedi clicked their tongue.</p>
<p>“Hold on,” they told him quietly, and tilted their hand. The rock went with it, rotating in place. The Jedi brought up their other hand and folded the fingers, keeping only two straight - slowly, they drew a smooth circle around their wrist, and Cody felt small crumbs of clay fall to his hand. Letting his eyes focus on the rock, he saw that, to his surprise, the person was scratching the outer grime off the rock with the Force, leaving a smooth surface underneath, not a dent on it, a feat that was more a show than an actually useful part of the skill, but it did demonstrate precision and patience intrinsic to a Jedi rather than a Sith. Cody knew that much.</p>
<p>They were showing Cody that they weren’t just any Force user, not one of the Imperial Inquisitors, rather a rebel, a Jedi survivor, and, ultimately, trustworthy.</p>
<p>Instead of dropping their hand, they let the rock float down to Cody’s palm slowly. The hold released and the weight of it returned. Cody studied it for a moment, unsure if he was supposed to fling it back to the ground or not – it was almost shining in the dim light of the dawn. After a second of thought, he put it in one of the containers on his belt.</p>
<p>The Jedi seemed mildly amused, tilting their head. “That doesn’t look very comfortable.”</p>
<p>“If you must know, the entire set is hell,” Cody told them dryly. “I’m surprised I can see enough to shoot.”</p>
<p>“Hah.” The noise that came from the mask was supposed to be a chuckle, but it didn’t quite sound like one. “That checks out. Most of the Stormtroopers we’ve met haven’t exactly, hum, impressed us with their accuracy.”</p>
<p>“Half of us aren’t trying,” he told them. He remembered, now, people with empty faces that couldn’t leave only because the Empire would not hesitate in hunting down anyone they’d ever loved.</p>
<p>“Yes.” The voice was quiet. “I’m sure you aren’t, all four of you.”</p>
<p>A small bout of silence stretched between them. Cody sighed, settling on following a different lead for now.</p>
<p>“Doesn’t seem like it was too hard to find us,” he remarked. The person tilted their head to the side.</p>
<p>“Followed a trail of thought, if you’ll believe me.” They stepped a bit closer, raising their hands a little again as if they were worried Cody wasn’t quite sure of their allegiance yet. He was. The trick with the rock had been enough.</p>
<p>
  <em>If you want proof that someone was trained in the Temple, or at the very least in the Light side of the Force, ask them to show you something pretty and useless. No, don’t laugh. The Sith don’t know pretty and useless - only practical and gut-churning, if deceiving. If a Force user draws you a flower in the sand with all the veins in the leaves or turns a droplet falling into a dance, you’ll know they’re a Jedi.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That’s a nice way to differentiate, sir, but why would I need that? Won’t a Sith kill me as soon as I open my mouth?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Don’t look down on yourself, Cody. The Sith are just as subject to quick blaster bolts as the Jedi are. If anything, your request would confuse them. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>For a very short moment.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Perhaps. But you’ve always been a quick shot, dear.</em>
</p>
<p> “Your mind is rather expressive,” the Jedi added.</p>
<p>Now, Cody thought bitterly, where had he heard that before?</p>
<p>“Take a seat,” he offered. “We should wait until the others wake and then move.”</p>
<p>The Jedi’s voice, even through the mask, was warm. “Thank you,” they said. “I’ve been walking for a bit. We’ll have to make it back to the city to get to the ship.”</p>
<p>Cody frowned. “How long?” The Jedi shrugged.</p>
<p>“A day or two. Your call was not deemed a priority, but the rest of the clones and most of us Jedi don’t exactly like that sentiment, so we tend to respond as quickly as possible. I got here yesterday in the morning.”</p>
<p>“About two days, then.” Cody didn’t ask if he hadn’t misheard, if there really were more clones, more brothers, because of course there were - if he and Boil broke out, why couldn’t the rest of them?</p>
<p>He wondered if there were any among them that used to belong to the 212<sup>th</sup>. Or to the 501<sup>st</sup>. He wondered if Rex was there. Rex was as painful a subject as the rest, but if there was anyone who fought the hardest while most deserving of peace, it was him.</p>
<p>“Yes,” the Jedi replied in a hushed voice, leaning against one of the plates they’d propped up to block the wind. “About two days.”</p>
<p>Cody looked up at them and realized they’d crossed their arms, settling against the cover like they were digging in for some rest.</p>
<p>“You planning to sleep?”</p>
<p>“Are you planning to keep me from it?” He saw one socket of the mask filter in a bit of light, saw a glimpse into the red tint of the whites of their eyes, but not much else. He would’ve noticed the vivid yellow irises, if they had been there. That calmed him a little further. “I haven’t slept for the last two cycles. I trust you not to kill me as soon as I pass out.”</p>
<p>Of course they hadn’t slept. Were all Jedi still the same or did the universe just want to torment him with <em>everything</em> reminding him of Obi-Wan?</p>
<p>He deserved it, anyhow.</p>
<p>“How do you know well enough I won’t that you’re making jokes about it?” A corner of Cody’s lips curled up on its own.</p>
<p>He got the idea that the Jedi’s eyes flicked to him. “I suppose I just have a feeling,” they told him, “somehow, that I can count on you.”</p>
<p>Cody clicked his tongue. “Instincts can be wrong, you know.” Very, very wrong. Even if they weren’t, in this case.</p>
<p>“It isn’t an instinct, exactly.” The voice spoke of a smile on their face, brief as it was. “I’ve always trusted the Force with my heart.”</p>
<p>Cody shook his head. “Okay,” he muttered, turning away. Typical. No matter how hard Obi-Wan had ever tried to explain it to him, he never really understood what half the shit people were saying about the Force meant. Well, he understood what he was being told – but he didn’t seem to have any moments where any of the mysticality and notions of eternity actually made any sense. “Okay.”</p>
<p><em>You’re too grounded,</em> <em>dear</em>, Obi-Wan used to tell him, smiling, usually after Cody had said something particularly snippy. <em>If you only let yourself think outside the box –</em></p>
<p><em>I can think outside the box,</em> Cody would tell him in turn, raising his eyebrows, <em>What you’re saying telling me is ‘throw the box into the propeller blades of a carrier and then stick your arm in there too, for good measure’.</em></p>
<p>Something like that would get him a laugh. He treasured those laughs. <em>I apologize. </em>Eye-rolling didn’t suit Obi-Wan, and Cody would hide his smile. <em>You’re certainly imaginative enough.</em></p>
<p>They were good discussions. Happier. Quiet. And he’d never have one again.</p>
<p>Behind him, the Jedi got comfortable - as comfortable as one could be in the corner of a wreckage site - and finally froze in place, head slowly lolling to their shoulder. Cody didn’t know for sure if they’d just fallen asleep, but he certainly didn’t want to risk their trust by assuming anything. He left the Jedi to their own devices.</p>
<p>Before sleep could get to him any further, he glanced up at the sky - right about time. Perhaps one more watch was warranted after all. The Jedi was resting, anyhow.</p>
<p>“Boil,” he called across the campsite. When he saw no movement from his brother’s sleeping form, clicking his tongue, he found a pebble on the ground and flung him at him lightly. It hit his shin guard.</p>
<p>“What do you <em>want</em>,” came a grumble.</p>
<p>“Your watch,” Cody let him know, waiting until he was sitting up and rubbing at his face blearily to add, “Mask’s not dangerous. I checked. That’s our rebel.”</p>
<p>With no further hesitation, he put his head down, and - he wasn’t even sure if he slept, really. He just blinked a few times, and then all was dark.</p>
<p>Didn’t even hear Boil. “Hold on, hold on, <em>who</em>?”</p>
<p>Perhaps it was the Jedi playing their tricks. Cody wouldn’t have been surprised. They always had a knack for helping others before themselves.</p>
<p>And yet, he slept, the soft, almost calming feeling surrounding him, drowning him in the sort of pleasant dreamless state he hadn’t been in in a long time. This time, there wasn’t any blissful floating, no uncertainty. Just the sandy deserts of rest.</p>
<p>As he woke, though, minutes or hours later, the sun had risen and the Jedi was talking to the three of them, Boil a little bewildered, Zhade-Ran with an unapologetic hand on her blaster. Taddea had stars in his eyes. <em>Shiny</em>.</p>
<p>“Good morning,” the Jedi greeted, turning to him in spite of him not saying a word, and if Cody knew what their face looked like, he would’ve bet they were smiling. “Any nice dreams?”</p>
<p>“Ha,” Cody deadpanned. “I’ve had worse.” </p>
<p>They didn’t reply anything to that. Just tilted their head to the side, watching him, hands clasped a little tighter together.</p>
<p>“I’m just glad you didn’t get shot while I was out,” Cody added, glancing at his three companions. Zhade-Ran grimaced, looking a bit regretful. “<em>Hey</em>.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, I almost did shoot him,” she admitted, dropping her hand from her belt. “Boil kicked me back.”</p>
<p>“Not that it did my old bones any good.” Boil threw Cody a good-natured glare. “‘Hi, Boil, your watch, that’s the rebel, don’t worry’. Boom, unconscious in two seconds. Teach me how to do that, I’d run from so many responsibilities.” </p>
<p>“For the record, a watch is hard work,” Cody told him, trying not to smile too blatantly. Admittedly, he was a little lost, too. He never fell asleep that quickly. Something turned his eyes to the Jedi, their gaze, by the looks of it, planted firmly in the ground.</p>
<p>Boil groaned. “Kriff’s sake, vod.”</p>
<p>“Well, for the record, <em>I</em> didn’t try to shoot him,” Taddea announced, smiling at the Jedi. “Which seems to make me the outlier here.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so it’s a ‘he’,” Cody muttered, rubbing at his eye. “What else did I miss?”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m certainly not an ‘it’, Cody,” the Jedi chuckled, crossing their - his arms. </p>
<p>Cody rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant, you know that.” He stood up and decided against stretching, in the end. He didn’t think the shoulder plates would allow it. “And who told you my name?”</p>
<p>The Jedi looked on to Boil without a word, who flushed, shrugging uncertainly. “Uh, I may have… mentioned it in passing conversation? Can’t recall it, but it was probably me.”</p>
<p>“Oh well,” Cody murmured. “At least I get to skip the introduction. What’s your name, then?”</p>
<p>“Ben.” The Jedi watched him carefully, as if waiting for something. Cody raised his eyebrows, shrugging. It was a common name, especially undercover. Whether real or not, he didn’t really bother speculating. The Jedi breathed a sigh – relief or disappointment, Cody couldn’t tell. “Taddea here asked for all that. Very chatty fellow.”</p>
<p>“That’s what I’ve been saying for the last two years, and I’m still stuck with the di’kut’ika,” Zhade-Ran agreed, knocking her hand against Taddea’s pauldron, who got back at her by kicking her in the shin. <a href="#di" id="diback" name="diback"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
<p>“Mature,” Cody commended. The Jedi just radiated mild amusement. Wondering whether Ben’s outlook was just that obvious or if he’d gotten attuned to reading Jedi too, somehow, Cody cleared his throat to get his attention. “So. Where are we going?”</p>
<p>“We’re moving towards K’aru,” he answered, as if Cody was supposed to know where that was. Ben nodded in the direction he’d come from. “It’s the closest port city from here.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t that title belong to K’avara?” Boil asked, raising an eyebrow. Cody tried to reach into his own thoughts and pulled out the fact that K’avara was the city where they landed. </p>
<p>The Jedi clicked his tongue, cocking his head to the side. “Well, that’s correct, but what I meant was more toward the lines of ‘the closest port city from here that won’t be crawling with Imps and also thousands of their wounded soldiers’. That sort of thing.” </p>
<p>“The Imps,” Cody said, quite liking the sound of that, “don’t keep wounded men for long.”</p>
<p>The Jedi looked at him, and Cody felt a chill that he wasn’t sure was even his. “No.” The mechanical voice was quiet, intercepted by static like it wasn’t registering in the mask. “No, I’m sure they don’t. They don’t have much value for life.”</p>
<p>“You can say that again,” Zhade-Ran said sourly, stomping out the embers as Taddea helped her bury them underneath the sands. “Shall we go, then? The sooner the better.”</p>
<p>“The sooner we go, the higher the chance to encounter an Imperial company,” Ben said thoughtfully, raising a hand to touch the bottom of his mask. Cody found the gesture familiar. Shook his head. What had gotten into him?</p>
<p>As if he’d noticed, the Jedi dropped his hands and locked them by his sides, palming idly at the protrusion where the lightsaber was concealed under the cloak. “But, then again, if we wait, they’ll come anyway. Yes, I think you’re right. The sooner the better.”</p>
<p>“Don’t jinx it,” Zhade-Ran murmured, picking up her helmet and placing it over her head carefully. </p>
<p>When the Jedi spoke, there was a smile etched into his voice. “Are you superstitious, Zhade-Ran?”</p>
<p>She rolled her eyes - they weren’t visible, but she tended to be expressive, her entire head lolling back. “I’m a realist.”</p>
<p>“Most Mandalorians are.”</p>
<p>She shook her head, snorting. “Are you messing with me?”</p>
<p>“I’m completely honest.” The smile had gone nowhere.</p>
<p>“Know many Mandalorians, do you?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” the Jedi said, shrugging, tilting his head up at the sky, “I’ve met a few.”</p>
<p>She was right, in the end, Cody decided, falling into step with the Jedi as they began moving and not wondering why it was so easy. A good little bit of field paranoia was mostly not superstition, but, rather, common sense.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps he shouldn’t have thought that, came a bleak notion as he fought the urge to mentally bite himself in the ass. Seeing the squad of Stormtroopers and a man cloaked in a gray uniform in front of them, he figured he was about to lose a few teeth either way. There weren’t too many – perhaps three or four for each of them. Which didn’t mean it’d be an easy fight by any means, but they had a Jedi with them.</p>
<p>Said Jedi sighed, looking at the beaten path in front of them and figuring out they ended up on their road. “And here I was taking precautions,” he muttered, “and it seems like your brothers in white have taken over the planet already.”</p>
<p>“Don’t call them that,” Boil said, grabbing for his blaster and remembering its sad fate. The other Stormtroopers’ weapons he’d taken had lasted all but the few days; they were either rookies who were never taught proper upkeep, or just plain stupid. He sighed at Cody, who’d kept his blaster well and tidy.</p>
<p>Suddenly, there was one right under Boil’s nose. The Jedi had a holster on his belt, too, on the other side of where the lightsaber was hanging, too far back to be visible, and was holding out a light-weighted blaster for Boil to take. He accepted the offer, raising an eyebrow at the Jedi.</p>
<p>“It’s quite alright, it’s yours. I find them a little too uncivilized.” The mask might’ve concealed his voice well, but damn if it wasn’t obvious when he was smiling.</p>
<p>“Prefer gutting them with a laser sword? You find that more civilized?” Boil inquired, nevertheless loading his blaster as the Stormtroopers readied theirs, bustling in the distance. From the atmosphere here, Cody couldn’t even tell if the Jedi was worried at all.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, he chuckled. “Boil, just use it, or I’ll take it back.” He grabbed his lightsaber, holding it by his side but not igniting it just yet. Smart, Cody thought, maybe they didn’t recognize him as a Jedi from sight alone. “I do, in fact, prefer using my lightsaber, and yes, it can be used to cut, but I don’t have many pleasant memories with that. One can easily carry blaster bolts back to the sender with it, though.”</p>
<p>“Sounds lovely,” Cody muttered, watching the Imperials advance. He knew about most fancy tricks a Jedi could pull with a lightsaber. At least if the Jedi was Obi-Wan. “What do we do now? There are too many of them.”</p>
<p>The Jedi considered his question for a moment. “Well, a Force suggestion won’t reach that far and definitely won’t span that many people, unfortunately.” He huffed, shaking his head. “I can’t stand trying to Force-persuade Imperial officers. Thick-skulled blurrgs, those. I’ll try negotiating with them, but… First of all, I don’t really want to.” The lightsaber handle glistened in the sun like the durasteel of a vibroblade. Technically, they were all enemies of the Empire. Dangerous by association. “Second of all, they’re Imperial. They won’t negotiate if they find out I’m a Jedi.” </p>
<p>“And then?” Cody encouraged. The Jedi sighed.</p>
<p>“I’ll go in front, take the bolts. There aren’t too many people for me to react. Shoot from behind me, just try not to shoot <em>me</em>.” </p>
<p>Cody snorted. “Not a problem.”</p>
<p>“Of course it’s not.” Graciously, Ben turned around to face the Imperials. “Okay. Trust me, and everything will be just fine.”</p>
<p>Whether it was the calm coming off him in waves or Cody was just felt a little more confident in the presence of a Jedi, but, somehow, looking on to the field just before he loaded his blaster, Cody believed him.</p>
<p>Step after step, they marched onwards, until the Imperial officer shouted a command. The troopers froze in place.</p>
<p>They were close. Very, very close. The Jedi was concealing his saber in a long sleeve, standing calmly with his feet planted on the ground. </p>
<p>“A Rebel,” the Imperial spoke, his cutting voice perhaps the most revolting thing Cody had ever heard. “And you seem to have pulled four of our men to your side, hm?”</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran snorted from behind Ben. </p>
<p>“Force have me,” the Jedi sighed. “They never assume you’re a native.”</p>
<p>“You haven’t tried,” Cody said quietly. The Jedi looked up at the Imperials.</p>
<p>“Even if I was a native, they’d shoot me.”</p>
<p>“Some clones, too,” the Imperial noted again, staring at Boil. The barrel of Boil’s blaster stared back. “Malfunctioning, are we?”</p>
<p>“I’ll show you a malfunction,” Boil muttered, thumbing at the trigger impatiently. </p>
<p>Before he could do anything, there was a click - and then the roar of an ignited lightsaber. The glove that held it gripped too tight, pointing it rigidly at the ground.</p>
<p>“Ah,” the Imperial chirped, sickeningly sweet. “A Jedi. How fitting. How lucky - for me. Who would’ve thought I’d find a Jedi among scrapped bodies?”</p>
<p>“We don’t take well to being insulted.” Zhade-Ran was speaking for all of them, frankly, holding her blaster with the practised stillness of a Mandalorian, and was soundly ignored.</p>
<p>"You Jedi loved your clones, did you not?" the man continued, and Cody just now realized the bile rising up his throat was his disgust at the gray uniforms and the plain armour. Once more, disgust at the entirety of the Empire and, most importantly, horror. He was part of this. If unwillingly. If unknowingly.</p>
<p>A grin spread across the officer's face, and Cody's trigger finger was itching, suddenly - <em>shoot him, shoot him on sight</em>. The Jedi, as if sensing the urge, raised his hand to halt his four companions from hasty action. </p>
<p>"As you say," spoke the deep voice underneath the transmitting mask. It was robotic and unnatural, but the smile was still edged into it. No matter what, even Imperial voice recognition wouldn’t reveal the speaker’s identity, even if the circle of suspects was narrowed down to the surviving Jedi.</p>
<p>Clever.</p>
<p>"I'll negotiate with you, Jedi," the Imperial offered, and the feeling clawing up Cody's throat could only be described as an intense urge to shove the negotiations so far up the man's arse his grandchildren would be tasting terms and conditions. "Give yourself over. And maybe we'll leave the spares." <em>Yeah, that’s real fair.</em></p>
<p>The Jedi's laughter came suddenly. He threw his head back with the force of it and let the hand that held his lightsaber droop a little, gently moving his wrist in circles. While it would’ve looked pointless to someone who hadn’t seen Jedi fight, it would otherwise be obvious it wasn’t a relaxed pose. "No." It meant he was readying his hand for action.</p>
<p>"Very well," the Imperial said, not a hint of surprise in his voice. "You'd have them die, then?"</p>
<p>"Those are not negotiations I am used to," the Jedi continued, and his voice had cooled in an instant, turned to a sharp, cutting edge. He took a wide stance, held his lightsaber above his head, and Cody's weapon was instinctively aimed in his hand at the sight, because if the Jedi was standing at the ready - if the Jedi's blade was blazing to life, Cody would be standing by him. The stance was familiar to him. He wondered how many stood the same, and how many had two splayed fingers pointing out the enemy, he wondered how many others’ Commanders had snapped at them, <em>You’re just looking for someone to slice those off,</em> he wondered how many –  </p>
<p>The Jedi beckoned the Imperial closer with one finger. "Come," he said, and Cody was fairly sure he'd never heard a Jedi speak with such pure venom before. Had never heard one taunt, exactly. But this was it. "Come. Take them from me. Rip them from my cold, dead hands. That is the only way you're getting to them."</p>
<p>"The remnants of your vile Order have lost the sense of diplomacy they were so proud of, it seems," the Imperial lamented, even as a wolfish grin took over across his face. The Jedi, unbeknownst to them all, answered with his own.</p>
<p>"You'll find I've got few things left to lose," he said, so sure of his words he might as well have been talking about the weather, "And you're not getting any of them."</p>
<p>The field between them froze for just one moment. The Imperial yelled a command, and the first battle of Cody's new life began.</p>
<p>Zhade-Ran and Taddea behind him fired their blasters. Boil fired his.</p>
<p>But it was Cody, who ever had his eyes on every part of the field at once, who ever knew where and what to do, who ever heard the constant praise for his good eye, who, too, fired his blaster, and shot the officer right between the eyes.</p>
<p>The body fell before the man could order another wave. The Imperials scattered for a brief moment, then surged back together to meet the five of them. Seconds ticked until the clash.</p>
<p>It was the first time Cody killed an Imperial officer, but he swore it would not be the last.</p>
<p>He dedicated this to his failure to protect. His failure to his true duty. He dedicated this to the demolished homes and broken hearts, to dead children and weeping adults. He dedicated himself to the Rebellion, now, and his heart just about burst with the feeling, spilled out for all to see.</p>
<p>The Rebel Jedi's voice was distorted by the mask he wore, and so his laughter was haunting. He howled with it, almost, triumphant, all-encompassing. As if the battle was already won.</p>
<p>"Good man," it was as if the wind ripped the words from his throat as he flied into the bunch, lightsaber roaring and cutting, and cutting, and cutting, in specific motions, in calculated circles, and voice echoed loud and clear as if it was important for them all to hear - "Good eye, cyar, as always!"<a href="#cya" id="cyaback" name="cyaback"><sup>2</sup></a></p>
<p>A good man. He'd been called that, too, by -</p>
<p>Every muscle in his body locked in place, and Cody's blaster slipped out of his hands. He barely grabbed it before it could fall to the ground, gripping it too hard. Eyes wide. He couldn’t help it.</p>
<p>In an instant, he knew why the swirls were so familiar. Why the Jedi knew exactly how he'd react to the threats. Why the Jedi stood easily among them, no discomfort evident, although they were clones, they had killed them – hadn’t they? If there was one person that could be this senselessly forgiving, this adamant that he didn’t trust them when everything he did said otherwise, who waited for Cody to recognize the codename, on the off-chance that he knew, he’d heard it, somewhere, years ago –</p>
<p>He was so sure that Cody had his back.</p>
<p>Cody numbed his throat with a vicious war cry - for the days of a long-passed war, for the warm bodies that came with breaking regulations, for what was undeniably his youth - and chased after a dead man.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="di" name="di"></a>1. Di’kut’ika – “Little idiot”, meant more along the lines of “someone who is forgetful and reckless” rather than useless of a waste of space. <a href="#diback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="cya" name="cya"></a>2. Cyare, cyar – Darling, dear. <a href="#cyaback">Back to text</a><br/>ahhh this one’s a bit short !! very sorry ;m; <br/>fun fact: this fic was supposed to be JUST that last scene of them talking to the imperials, and then nanowrimo happened lmao.<br/>one more left, i hope you like it! oh, and, if any of you celebrate, have a nice christmas eve :&gt;</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. As Even Infinite Despair Gives Way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There is, as there should be, an end to all this. And, naturally, there is a new beginning afterward. It is Light, perhaps. Lighter than anything Cody has felt in a long time.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this chapter has no explicit warnings.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a blur. Battles often turned to a blur, once one had fought enough of them. At least it felt that way to Cody – eventually, there was too much noise to process, too many falling bodies, too many breaking men and too many flying blaster bolts. He’d fix his eyes on a point moving forward and make his way there, blasting away everything in his path as different thoughts spiralled in his head, making him feel like he was floating, at times.</p><p>It was a game of chance. Not everyone made it out alive. Sometimes Lady Luck favoured them, sometimes she did not. There were good campaigns, there were bad ones. Cody had seen all of them, lived through all of them. He wondered, sometimes, whether the fact that he just kept on surviving was a blessing or a curse.</p><p>The aftermath was always the worst part only if one didn’t count the preparation. There were so many shinies that shook before their first few battles, especially if the very first one had been bad. There were so many whose breath grew quicker before the drop from a carrier. So many who’d always fare better with the knowledge that their brothers were right there by their side, even if most of them weren’t walking away from this unscathed.</p><p>It was better if one’s hands shook after battle, with adrenaline and exhaustion. The alternative was hollow eyes and empty glances. The alternative was empty bunks and screams serving just as well as comm alarms every few hours.</p><p>He'd always decide, in the end, that holding on was worth it. If only for the brothers that came out alive. Sometimes he needed them to survive, sometimes the reverse was true.</p><p>Other times, he needed someone else. Cody loved all his brothers; and he loved Obi-Wan, in a different manner. But just as dearly. He needed him just as much. He was just as terrified of his death as he knew Obi-Wan to be of Cody’s. He was aware that Obi-Wan’s fear was different, less cruel, somehow, with the knowledge there would be a moment when, if he had to, he’d have to let Cody go.</p><p>But it was still fear. He admitted it once only. Cody hadn’t even expected that much when he told Obi-Wan what he thought himself.</p><p>He was so afraid of losing Obi-Wan he didn’t dare imagine it. If Cody was to die, Obi-Wan had to – <em>had</em> to - still be alive. He couldn’t think of Obi-Wan going first, even if the possibility was there and he’d have to live with it.</p><p>Obi-Wan had looked so damn sad, when Cody told him that. Sure, he could live without Obi-Wan, if he had to, Cody said, but why the hell would he want to?</p><p>Funny how strange life could be.</p><p>
  <em>You’ve got to stop darling-ing me in battle. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And why is that? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>People can hear you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I doubt it. </em>
</p><p>Everything felt more and more familiar the more he fought, the longer he cut through the white armours and scowling faces. They hadn’t had many runs against sentient enemies before – just enough for it not to feel too foreign, the sounds of breaking bones and dying grunts. Granted, Cody usually had multiple squads of brothers and a Jedi by his side.</p><p>And the longer he followed the fluttering cloak, watching his six, watching as the man in front of him turned all the right ways for Cody to run bolts through the troopers around him, the more familiar he felt, too.</p><p>When Cody picked a spot and mowed down everything in his path in the Wars, the spot he followed through the field was usually cloaked and holding a roaring lightsaber, too.</p><p>It wasn’t so hard to connect the gyres and the jumps and, hell, the easy grace he moved with. More guarded, more careful, perhaps, clearly used to protecting himself without a back-up squad on his trail again, but the man in front of him was –</p><p>Cody <em>killed </em>him. He saw him fall. He heard the body break on the rocks. He saw the blood in the water. He saw the cloak float up. He saw the <em>corpse</em>.</p><p>Didn’t he?</p><p>
  <em>Even if they do, they can’t tell I’m talking to you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>‘Good shot, darling’. They can definitely tell you’re not talking to yourself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mm. There’s something you’re not telling me, I think.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Fine: I’m just going to get flustered and walk into a droid.</em>
</p><p>There was no victory for the Imperials where the Jedi went, evidently. Cody wondered distantly if the Jedi felt as angry as he did, every time they lay eyes on the Stormtroopers, on the grays of the officers.</p><p>Perhaps anger wasn’t the right word for it. But Cody had seen a blue lightsaber in such vicious action only a couple of times before.</p><p>He wondered when he started seeing the Jedi in front of him as Obi-Wan. If it was just now, or - …</p><p>All those little gestures, all the mannerisms and the insignificant habits that reminded Cody of him. Hell, the warm feeling brushing against his mind, just before the Jedi first got there. Was he kriffing <em>blind</em>? Even though Obi-Wan was hiding from him, he either did a very poor job, or he did not <em>want </em>to hide.</p><p>He wondered distantly when Obi-Wan had managed to leap over the moral hurdle of killing people.</p><p>Then he realized that the Stormtroopers around him were only dead where he, Boil, Zhade-Ran and Taddea had shot them. The only lightsaber wounds were incapacitating. Dismemberments – cruel, perhaps – were effective. Nevertheless, Cody shot even those that went down; they didn’t need anyone knowing they were here. They didn’t need anyone knowing they were alive.</p><p>They didn’t need anyone knowing Obi-Wan was alive, either.</p><p>Cody grinned, despite all of his confusion, and frustration, and prickling hurt, and loss. He grinned, and he kept on going as they –</p><p>Cut through the squads, and he was definitely imagining the flash of red hair underneath the hood when the Jedi looked back to check on them –</p><p>And they were winning –</p><p>And they had won.</p><p>
  <em>But that was, objectively and genuinely, a damn good shot. Darling.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dini’la Jetii’ka.</em>
  <a href="#dini" id="diniback" name="diniback">
    <sup>1</sup>
  </a>
</p><p>There were only a couple of minutes for him to gather himself before the sword slammed back into the hilt and the Jedi turned around, looking over the field.</p><p>Cody watched him. Did nothing else. Just watched him.</p><p>“I’m good, I’m good, let me go,” he could hear Boil grumbling behind him. Reminded himself to check his bacta compartments.</p><p>“Are you alright?” the Jedi asked. Him, first. He asked him.</p><p>Cody nodded. Shook his head. Nodded again. Twice.</p><p>“And you?” Just the faintest brush of their shoulders as the Jedi – because he wasn’t Obi-Wan behind the mask yet, no, Cody couldn’t know that – as the Jedi stepped around him to get to Boil. “Are you lot unharmed?”</p><p>“Scratches and bruises.” Zhade-Ran’s voice. “We’re good.”</p><p>“Good,” echoed the Jedi shortly. “We should move, then. Get away from the site.”</p><p>And so they moved. Cody followed, feeling a little like a hollowed-out helmet instead of a man, making his way to the Jedi’s side. Ben. Obi-Wan. Whatever he went by, these days.</p><p>There had been many days, undoubtedly. Many different days.</p><p>They fell into step easily. At least now Cody knew why.</p><p>He could hear Boil and the two others speaking in a distant part of his mind.</p><p>“Do we get to the city today?” came Taddea’s voice. The Jedi hummed.</p><p>“Only an hour or so of travel left, yes, but I’d prefer to wait until sunset. Stormtrooper armour will set quite a few patrols off if we waltz in in broad daylight.”</p><p>“Well, then this is as good as we’re gonna get,” Zhade-Ran kicked at the ground absent-mindedly, stepping around until she had a solid circle stomped out. They were a good bit away from the fighting grounds, now. “Don’t wanna get too close to the city, do we?”</p><p>“No,” he agreed. “Let’s set up here, get some rest. Move out once it’s dusk, and we’ll make good time.”</p><p>That’s what they did. Not that they had many belongings to speak of - well, the three of them had nothing more than the armour they wore and the blasters they hadn’t shattered, but the Jedi carried a little bag that dangled down to his hip, and had surprised them all the previous night by pulling out a blanket.</p><p>
  <em>“You went to possibly fight us and you packed a blanket,” Cody had said, staring blankly at the soft cloth that the man draped down for all of them. To lie down on, it was enough. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Well,” the Jedi had said, shrugging like it was no big deal at all. “If you find it too ridiculous for your tastes, I can pack it back in?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hell no.” Cody plopped down on the ground. “Dibs on the right corner.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The Jedi’s laughter, even through the mask, sounded brilliant.</em>
</p><p>And now Cody knew why.</p><p>Before he could reach him, though, Taddea did.</p><p>“Can I bother you for a bit?” he asked, a sort of stupid smile on his face that shinies got when they saw their General fight for the first time. “I’ve just - never seen someone use a lightsaber before. I wanted to ask you a few things?”</p><p>The Jedi opened his mouth, most likely to agree, he was always like that, but Cody stopped by them, tapping the man on the shoulder.</p><p>“Pardon the interruption,” he said to Taddea, “but I’ll have to steal him for a bit.”</p><p>The Jedi looked up at him before he stood up, still thumbing at the zipper. “Oh? A kidnapping? Can’t say it’s been a while.”</p><p>Cody ignored that. "Walk with me," he said curtly. The Jedi dropped his bag, finally giving up on pulling out the blanket.</p><p>“Is something wrong?” he asked. </p><p>Cody considered it. “Yes.”</p><p><em>It’s you. It’s you</em>, he didn’t say, because they were still around everyone and it was too bright here, under the dusty sky, as if the words he was going to say would be lit up and lifted for everyone to see, to betray what he thought, to give away the pieces of his heart and mind that Cody had only ever reserved for those he truly, truly - </p><p>“Then I’ll be right behind you.” With no further hesitation, the Jedi followed.</p><p>Cody walked, not really thinking about where he was going. He wasn’t sure what to say and how to say it, didn’t know what to do, but the itch under his skin was getting unbearable, and for once in his life he’d be the one to do something about it.</p><p>They were far away from their camp. The protrusions in the ground and skeletons of ships around hid them from most sides. It was enough.</p><p>He whipped around quickly enough to startle the man following him.</p><p>"Take the mask off.”</p><p>The Jedi cocked his head to the side. Cody hated, hated how casual he looked.</p><p>"Beg pardon?"</p><p>"I know who you are," he went on. When the dead man said nothing, he stepped closer, and the Jedi didn't step back in response. "I know what you called me." </p><p>He could see his head twitch to the side inquisitively before he drew in a breath, quietly. It was a happenstance. Only a habit. A wonder he remembered it. Cody wasn't sure how that made him feel. "You must've misheard."</p><p>"Why," Cody snapped. "Why are you lying to me - " he took a breath and threw his only card - desperation, and a memory - "again?"</p><p>The man flinched - and stayed silent. Cody stepped closer, unwilling to admit just how much he didn’t want to be saying those things, only for him to confess what the two of them knew already instead of hurting both –</p><p>"<em>Draar ner jahaati tug'yc. Gar ru'dinui ner gar'miit</em>." The Mando’a was a living song on their tongues, always had been. <a href="#dra" id="draback" name="draback"><sup>2</sup></a></p><p>The Jedi looked like Cody had physically struck him. “I – Cody. That’s not… You have to understand.”</p><p>“I understood Rako Hardeen,” Cody told him, because he did, he couldn’t be mad at him – they had agreed that duty was most important, it’s not like they had a choice back then, but now, now? “But I can’t understand this.”</p><p>“<em>Ni ne’jahati,</em>” the Jedi told him, finally, quietly, and now Cody heard his accent clearly, and now Cody <em>knew</em>. <em>“A cabuor’ni</em>.”<a href="#ne" id="neback" name="neback"><sup>3</sup></a></p><p>He felt his own chest grow colder. “What’s that supposed to mean.”</p><p>He could sense that the Jedi knew he was getting pushed into a corner, that there was no escaping him unless he just flat-out refused to take the mask off. If he did, though, Cody would’ve accepted defeat. Accepted it, accepted the fact that things were going to be like this, and not asked again.</p><p>But the Jedi – <em>Obi-Wan </em>- was making excuses to <em>himself</em>, not Cody. Cody already knew, he – would’ve already been dead if his brain had tried to coerce him to touch even a hair on Obi-Wan’s head. Obi-Wan was arguing himself, not Cody. He had barely tried to hide. He was calm in their presence, almost like nothing had happened at all, and the mask was good, the modulator was good, but in everything else he was still Obi-Wan and it was just so damn plain to see if only Cody could believe it -</p><p>"Last time you saw a Jedi," Obi-Wan spoke, frustration barely concealed by the mask, "you blew him off a cliff. Forgive me for wanting <em>insurance</em>."</p><p>"And it was you." Cody grit his teeth and stood in place. "It was <em>you.</em>"</p><p>A beat, a silence, and anything could happen – but nothing happened at all. </p><p>“Perhaps you’re right,” the Jedi said, his voice quivering - annoyance or anxiety, he couldn’t tell. “But I certainly don’t want to end up there again.”</p><p>There it was, confirmation. It wasn’t like Obi-Wan wasn’t smart enough to admit Cody knew and it was an open secret, if only between them. But the mask separated them, a wall, a shield for the Jedi who was supposed to be dead, not only against the Empire but, in some twisted way, against them, as well. Against Cody.</p><p>It hurt. But it was not unwarranted.</p><p>After all, knowing it was him under the mask and seeing him were two different things. The chip, albeit broken, was still in his head. Who knew what could – flare up, or –</p><p>“I won’t - I won’t force you to do anything,” Cody said, looking away and realizing that if the Jedi would turn around and leave right now, he wouldn’t find it in himself to stop him. “You know that.”</p><p><em>But I know </em>you, was what he didn’t say, again, because the man was aware of that already. </p><p>“I know,” the Jedi said, and he almost sounded - mournful, in a way. They all harboured a thousand regrets these days. “I know, believe me.” He wanted to say something else, but only managed a shake of his head.</p><p>Cody stepped back thoughtlessly. A pit had opened in his stomach.</p><p>Well, he asked for it. But what to do now? Just walk back to the camp? They both <em>knew</em>, now, and what did he want Cody to do? What did he expect of him? Cody knew what to do when he was bound by regs, but never in times like these. There were no regs for that. Not that there were any more regs in general.</p><p>His thoughts were interrupted as the Jedi raised his hands and pulled down the neck gaiter from underneath the mask. It dislodged with a click, a disconnection of the vocal modulator.</p><p>Cody genuinely felt blood roaring in his ears.</p><p>“You,” he began, and didn’t know how to end it, before the mask could be removed. <em>You don’t have to?</em> He was the one who pushed him into a corner. Anything he would say as reassurance would make him seem like the shittiest person on the planet, now, if he wasn’t that already. “I--”</p><p>“I know,” echoed Obi-Wan’s voice. Sweet and lilted and his and alive. “I know.”</p><p>As the mask slid off, Cody felt the surge of his own anxiety - perhaps he’d overdone it, perhaps he really didn’t know how far the chip’s capabilities extended - but then the mask shifted downward, clutched to his chest, and Cody forgot to worry.</p><p>There was a thin, branching scar lining up his cheek and almost reaching his eye, so much paler than his skin it almost looked like a trickle of gold, spreading across the entire half of his face like he’d been struck by lightning. His hair, by the looks of it, was bleached by sun and stress even more than it had been in the Wars, the silver spreading from behind the ears across his head and down to his beard, but the eyes were the same. All Cody ever needed to see were his eyes.</p><p>He braced - and, nothing. </p><p>There was no voice in the back of his head telling him to kill the Jedi, no subtle push in his bones, no flare of animosity. The only thing he recognized was the urge to lunge at Obi-Wan (standing right in front of him, alive, alive, <em>alive</em>), wrap his arms around him and never let go. That wasn't something the Empire had put in him. It was there by his own heart.</p><p>But he stood still. Something prevented him from moving. It was, perhaps, the drop of distrust in Obi-Wan's eyes, the wary, guarded position he was standing in. Ready for anything. </p><p>It had been seven long years, and neither had been there for any of it.</p><p>Cody shifted. Just slightly. Obi-Wan glanced down, tracking his movement. Cody cursed, silently, just under his breath, and Obi-Wan raised his eyes back to him.</p><p>"Obi'ka," Cody said, quiet so nobody else would hear. He may have been overstepping five lines at once, but he had Obi-Wan here and he had things to say, and he was going to say them. He had - "I missed you."</p><p>Then, to his wonder, joy and disbelief at once, the ice on Obi-Wan's face thawed. As soon as he realized the chip didn’t make Cody throw himself at him with a blaster after seeing him for who he was, Obi-Wan practically – lit up.</p><p>"Oh, thank the Force." His voice was soft. "Me too, I missed you too, Cody. I missed you too."</p><p>He barely managed to clip the mask to the hook on his belt near the lightsaber, and then Cody stepped forward. And stopped. Because<em> ‘I missed you’ </em>wasn’t permission to come close to him, to touch him, at all. It had been something akin to a bacta salve on a shattered heart, perhaps, but it was not permission.</p><p>The fact that Obi-Wan shook his head in helpless exasperation, opened his arms and wrapped them around Cody, enveloping him in warmth he’d tried so hard not to miss, though, was.</p><p>Stars, he was warm. Cody was used to feeling Obi-Wan’s hands and finding them cold, kissing the tip of his nose and then asking how it hadn’t frozen off yet. This time, he just buried his face in Obi-Wan’s neck, felt the little chuckle that shook him, the fingertips scratching gently against his hair. </p><p>He held Obi-Wan like he could disappear any minute, and wouldn’t that be typical of the Galaxy they lived in. </p><p>As if he could feel it, Obi-Wan shushed him. <em>Your mind is very expressive.</em> “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he was muttering quietly, all the things he must’ve thought once he saw him and couldn’t yet voice. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Why wouldn’t he be, right now? He forced his hands to stop clutching Obi-Wan’s sides so tightly, gently brushed them up to his shoulders. “Me too. Thought I was gonna die,” Cody confessed, pretty much murmuring into his neck. “Before I knew that you –… I thought the entire Galaxy was collapsing around me.”</p><p>“You don’t carry that weight alone.” Obi-Wan kissed the words into his hair, one hand on his back, the other across his chest, on his face. “Even if I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t be alone. Life works in strange ways like that. If it takes something away, it gives you something new.”</p><p>“I don’t want new. I’ve got you.”</p><p>“That’s true.” Obi-Wan leaned back, just the slightest bit, eyes on him. “You have me. But that doesn’t stop change.”</p><p>Cody pulled back and took a better look at him, raising his hands to press them against his neck. The scar he’d seen ran deeper than he’d thought - Cody thumbed a trail across it, just in time to see Obi-Wan’s eyes flutter closed as he wrapped a hand around Cody’s wrist. Cody marvelled at how quickly he trusted - at how the second there was nothing keeping Cody from grabbing at him, he just - let it happen.</p><p>“What happened here?” Cody covered the scar with his palm, brushing his thumb under Obi-Wan’s eye and leaning closer.</p><p>Without hesitation, Obi-Wan pressed their foreheads together, and Cody, faced with the warmth of him being so close, <em>again</em>, almost missed his words. “Nothing to fuss over, now. Ran into the odd Inquisitor on my way around.”</p><p>Cody frowned, opening the eyes he’d closed briefly at the contact. “Jedi killers.”</p><p>“So you know.” Obi-Wan sighed, reluctant to draw back. “It happened a few years ago. They’ve gotten sloppier now, I won’t lie.” He smiled. “I call it Rebellion success.”</p><p>Something gripped Cody’s heart and didn’t let go. He knew that seven years was a long time, logically, remembered those years now, with bitterness and contempt, but to hear Obi-Wan refer to some happening ‘a few years ago’ so lightly… </p><p>“Darling,” Obi-Wan muttered, gently drawing his thumb over Cody’s chin. He could always feel his unease. “Hey. We’re okay now.” </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. Obi-Wan winced, still holding onto him, bright eyes focusing on Cody’s.</p><p>“Whatever for?”</p><p>Cody opened his mouth, closed it. He knew the answer, but voicing it was difficult - voicing it would’ve meant admitting what he’d done, admitting that he attributed some part of it to his failure, to his inability to resist the wiring in his brain.</p><p>“For everything,” he said, simply, his voice hoarse. “For trying to kill you, for staying under for <em>seven bloody years</em> while you were out there chasing the Sith and burning down the Empire, and for me not being there by your side when I - I promised, I’d always…” He shook his head, trailing off before his throat could make his voice break on him.</p><p>It had hurt, it had hurt for so long, as soon as he woke up, he realized it had never stopped - somewhere, the husk that Twenty-Four had been harboured so much loathing for the life he lived, for the inability to change what it was and what he should’ve been. Somewhere, even when he didn’t know it ached just yet, it already did. And when it all descended on him, when he woke up in the darkness, covered by pieces of durasteel that dug into this skin as hard as the memories dug into his heart, the sole reason he clawed his way out was because he wanted proof that this was some horrible nightmare. Even seeing that he was just a rightless helmet in the Wars would’ve been better than the memories he was faced with, anything, anything at all…</p><p>He did not find that. All he saw was the burning earth around him, and it was more or less fitting with what he felt in his mind.</p><p>Obi-Wan’s lips parted - in surprise, inability to speak, it wasn’t clear. But, slowly, he shook his head and pulled Cody against himself. Gently, he carded his fingers through Cody’s hair and murmured something quiet into his neck, waiting until Cody’s arms came up to wrap around his waist gingerly, locking them in a hug again.</p><p>“What?” Cody said, Obi-Wan’s murmur too quiet for him to hear. Obi-Wan tilted his head and said, again, into his ear.</p><p>“I don’t want you to apologize. Please don’t apologize for things you had no control over.” He pulled back just the slightest bit and, to Cody’s surprise, pressed the softest kiss to his temple, to his brow, then between his eyes. All the while his own were looking at him like he was something precious.</p><p>“Ob’ika,” Cody said, and didn’t know what else to add to that. He’d never touch him, he’d never hurt him, that much he knew, but the hand that pointed him out and sent him spiralling down to the rocks in the bottom of the river was his, the voice was his, and the mind that kept following those orders was his as well.</p><p>“Kote,” Obi-Wan said, like an answer, like a plea. “You don’t deserve the loathing you harbour for yourself. You don’t deserve your own anger, and please, whatever you do, don’t apologize to me for orders that you never wanted to submit to.” Cody averted his eyes, but Obi-Wan took his face and turned it back to himself gently. “Look at me, please. Do you think I didn’t know you’d want to be there, fighting against the Empire, if your mind was your own? Do you think I took you for a traitor for even a second past the shock of crawling out of that river? Cody, I knew who you are. I still do. What I think of you hasn’t changed.” </p><p>The look on his face, oh, the look on his face. It was reserved for him, that much Cody knew, he only ever saw it when Obi-Wan looked at him those times when they were at their brightest, waking up on easy mornings, returning together from successful missions. This was not one of those times, they were standing on scorched earth, they were standing in the ruins of all the years that came after the end of the world, but they were together, and that was the only thing he needed, apparently, to smile at Cody like this, to look at him with those crinkles around his eyes that spoke only of endless affection and perseverance in spite of all. </p><p>Obi-Wan’s breathing was shaky, but the words he said were not. “My caring for you has not changed, nor has the love I feel for you.” He shook his head, drawing back a little, his smile disappearing. “Cody, if anything, I should be saying sorry.”</p><p>“Why the hell would <em>you</em>--”</p><p>“I saw the transmission,” he said, breathlessly, looking over Cody’s shoulder, staring far away. “Ilze – one of the operators, you spoke to her – brought me the holo recording, told me to look and see if I knew the clones. Cody, I recognized Boil first, but when I saw you…” His mouth was open for a moment as if he was still living in the state of shock, he still didn’t know what to say. “...I had never despised myself more than in that moment.”</p><p>Cody waited for him to speak, wondering briefly if maybe he should let him go and electing that as long as Obi-Wan wasn’t pushing him away, he was going to stay right here with his arms wrapped around him. </p><p>“To think that you were out there, in the Empire, for those last seven years. A Stormtrooper.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I looked for you, trust, I did not presume you were dead from the start. It was a mission doomed to fail, and yet I hoped. But - “ Shame had always shone vividly on Obi-Wan, a different type of guilt Cody had always hated to see. “But I gave up, eventually. I gave up, and I am so, so sorry.” </p><p>Cody listened to him, heard him out. But that wasn’t what mattered - he was here now, he’d come as soon as he found the inkling of hope Cody could be saved, went alone to an Empire-ridden planet whose inhabitants would’ve <em>loved</em> a chase - and he was apologizing for what, for putting his efforts toward a better cause than an investigation that would’ve yielded no leads anyway? Ridiculous.</p><p>He realized, then, that the same thing, in regards to him, mattered to Obi-Wan. Not the chip. Not Utapau. Just him.</p><p>“You escaped us with your life, you were fighting the good fight with the rebels.” Cody didn’t miss the way Obi-Wan’s hands scratched his armour in the effort to hold onto anything at all. “And now you’re here. That’s more than could ever have hoped for.”</p><p>He felt Obi-Wan pressing a kiss to the junction between his shoulder and his neck, where he only had his glove, felt him breathe for a moment. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I never meant to hurt you, I - I’m so glad you’re here.”</p><p>“Cyare,” Cody said. Quietly. Like a secret. Which it probably wasn’t going to be for long, anymore, but he had Obi-Wan gathered in his arms just like all those years ago, and he thought he’d never get to call him that again. “Cyare ner.”</p><p>Obi-Wan laughter hadn’t changed. If it was genuine, it’d be soft and breathless. It’d be meant for someone. Right now, it was meant for Cody. “I missed you, I missed you,” he echoed, even as they separated at last, he put his hands on Cody’s face, a testament to one of Cody’s best memories, his eyes shining, lips curving up. “I love you.”</p><p>This time, Cody didn’t wait for Obi-Wan to kiss him first.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Boil looked just a little bit like a disgruntled parent when he saw them walking back.</p><p>“Vod<em>, </em>don’t do that, maybe?” he called to him, putting down the rations he was finishing up. “Thought that chip started up again or something. You were gone for a bit.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Cody replied, his voice ridiculously hoarse, trying not to let it break from just the sheer <em>brightness</em> of Obi-Wan next to him. “Yeah, we were.”</p><p>“Up to something already?” Zhade-Ran shouted after them. “I know you Jedi have your tricks, but please refrain in the presence of the more easily impressionable.” She nudged Taddea’s side, who didn’t even hesitate to punch her in the shoulder, perhaps a bit harder than intended. “Ow!”</p><p>“Not to worry,” Obi-Wan replied, and there was nothing in his voice that could mask the smile curving his lips. “I do believe I ran out of all my good ‘Jedi tricks’ a fair while ago.”</p><p>The voice that had replaced the artificial hum drew all of their attention, but it was Boil that snapped his head back like he was hearing a dream. He stared Obi-Wan up and down for a moment before jumping to his feet.</p><p>“Holy shit,” he managed, taking a few steps toward them before freezing in place again. Looking like he couldn’t believe his eyes, he asked, almost gingerly, “General Kenobi?”</p><p>“Hold on, what?” Taddea called from the back of the camp, but Boil hardly heard him.</p><p>“Hello, Boil,” Obi-Wan greeted warmly. “My, is it good to see another familiar face. With my own eyes, I mean.”</p><p>“What.” Boil shook his head, blinking rapidly. Obi-Wan stood patiently still, only tilting his head to the side. "<em>What.</em>"</p><p>Cody could practically feel Boil's seeping confusion, not unlike his own, at first.</p><p>"You're a…" He took a breath. "You're alive."</p><p>"I'm alive," Obi-Wan confirmed calmly. Boil shook his head again, then, staring like he was seeing a ghost.</p><p>“We shot you off a cliffside. We saw your robe up on the water.” Comically enough, he rubbed at his eye with his fist. “The water was <em>bloody</em>.”</p><p>Obi-Wan shrugged, lacing his fingers together absent-mindedly. “Yes, well, as I already let Cody over here know…” His grin grew wider, almost a reminder of the kind of smile he could muster up back in the Clone Wars, before he was put to this wretched service, forced into seeking another noble goal and forgoing all his principles. Cody didn’t know how he knew all that, but it was in his mind like Obi-Wan had been there himself. “I can swim. Rather well. You got Boga, not me.” His expression fell. “A terrible loss, but she did give her life for me.”</p><p>Boil just kept shaking his head, taking the same few steps back. “I can’t believe it,” he said, quietly. “I can’t kriffing believe it.” His eyes, wide in their shock, wandered to Cody and narrowed in accusation. “Did you know about this?”</p><p>“Do you think I would’ve been that mopey all the time if I kriffing knew?” Cody snapped back at him. “No, I didn’t. I found out because he pet-named me while we fought the Imperials.”</p><p>Boil’s laughter probably came from his sheer surprise. “General?”</p><p>“You were moping around because of me?” Obi-Wan turned to Cody, raising an eyebrow and ignoring the jab. “I’m flattered.”</p><p>“Don’t get used to it, you’re on a thin line,” Cody grumbled.</p><p>The other eyebrow went up. “Whatever for?”</p><p>“You <em>know</em>.” </p><p>Obi-Wan chuckled, raising his hands. “Okay, alright, I concede.” His soft, vaguely thoughtful expression came onto his face, one of Cody’s undeniable favourites. Force, sang his heart, he never thought he’d get to see it again. “I’ll make it up to you, somehow.”</p><p>“I swear, I’m not sure if this is the worst or best day of my life,” Boil muttered, staggering back to his seat and dropping down like a wet sack of potatoes. “On one hand, apparently Obi-Wan Kenobi’s an absolute madman and managed to survive his entire battalion working off their asses trying to hunt him down, on the other…” He waved vaguely at the two of them, Obi-Wan and Cody. “I’m going to have to deal with watching this again.”</p><p>Cody’s voice was drier than the steppe surrounding them. “<em>Hey</em>.”</p><p>“In any case,” Obi-Wan laughed, following him to the campfire and waiting for Cody to invite him to sit. He turned to raise a hand to Zhade-Ran and Taddea. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, again.”</p><p>“Sure,” Zhade-Ran replied, offering her hand. Just a tad impressed by him taking her by the forearm in a more widespread Mandalorian greeting instead of just shaking her hand, she gave him a half-smile. “So, what’s the name again?”</p><p>“Oh, still Ben,” Obi-Wan told her, dropping his hand. “It’s the name I go by now, just not the one they’d know me by.” He sent a wink Boil’s way. “I’m not a General anymore, to add.”</p><p>“Yeah?” he muttered, poking at the ground with his vibroblade idly. “Well, what are you now then, sir?”</p><p>“Not that, either,” Obi-Wan chuckled. “I’m - well, just one of the bunch, I suppose. No titles, no ranks, my name is Ben, I’m with the Rebel Alliance.”</p><p>“But you’re a Jedi,” Taddea pointed out, and Zhade-Ran groaned quietly when she saw him sitting there staring at Obi-Wan with stars in his eyes. “Aren’t you?”</p><p>Obi-Wan hummed inquisitively. “Well… Yes, but only in the traditional sense, I suppose. I am a Jedi by principle still, yes, my Code persists and my way of life stays, but as an institution, most of us either moved to the Rebellion or escaped to bide our time.”</p><p>Cody pressed his lips into a line. He knew how much the Order had meant to Obi-Wan, he knew how devastated he must’ve been when it all went down, could quite literally feel it in some crevice of his heart. “I’m sorry,” he said to him, quietly, leaning closer.</p><p>Obi-Wan smiled at him. Sad and silent. “It’s been seven years,” he answered, even quieter.</p><p>“Did it get better?” was Cody’s question.</p><p>Obi-Wan turned his eyes away. “I don’t think it ever will, cyare.”</p><p>Carefully, Cody moved into his space, holding a hand out. His voice was quiet when he asked, “Can I - “</p><p>“Yes,” Obi-Wan answered, his breath coming in a shaky exhale. “Yes, whatever it is.”</p><p>He’d always valued touches of comfort, so Cody wrapped a gentle arm around his waist, resting at the hip. Without thinking about it, Obi-Wan leaned against him, accidentally butting him in the ear a little and muttering an apology. Cody chuckled, tilting his head to press a kiss into his hair.</p><p>“Are there many clones in the Rebellion?” Boil asked, ignoring their position to the best of his ability. Cody leaned back a bit to look at Obi-Wan, having been naturally curious himself. Obi-Wan tilted his head, considering the question.</p><p>“As many as we can find,” he answered, shrugging lightly, peeling himself off of Cody’s side. “If it’s a clone serving the Empire, it’s a cue that they’re chipped. Some freed clones come join the Rebellion - most of them, the others leave to build themselves a different kind of life, as is well within their right. But I’ve met none that have wanted to stay in the Empire.”</p><p>“No shit,” Cody muttered. Obi-Wan had a way with sad smiles.</p><p>“But there aren’t… Many, no. Perhaps a… Perhaps a few thousand.” </p><p><em>Out of six million. </em>A cold shiver ran up Cody’s spine. He voiced as much, in disbelief. Obi-Wan hung his head.</p><p>“Unfortunately. Yes.”</p><p>Boil shook his head, looking away in genuine horror. Had the Empire really thinned them out this bad?</p><p>Cody shifted closer to his partner, leaning in, unsure how to ask - </p><p>“The 212<sup>th</sup>?” he inquired quietly. Obi-Wan looked at him with such sad eyes it made his heart ache.</p><p>“There are a few. I’ve met them in passing. Maybe… A few dozen?”</p><p>“A dozen,” he repeated. “A <em>dozen</em>.”</p><p>Obi-Wan clicked his tongue. “I never counted, believe it or not,” he told him. “Any clone we could save was worth it. There aren’t full battalions anywhere anymore, not really. But we understand that, coming from a clone that’s been chipped, they’ll want to know about their closest brothers first.” Obi-Wan bit down on his lip, waiting for Cody to ask - they both knew he would. </p><p>Cody had, once, been terrified of the fact that he was getting so attached to his brothers. They died so quickly, too soon - and every loss was a kick in the gut, dislodging something in his chest. </p><p>Not anymore. He was allowed to grieve, even if he was scared of what he was going to ask. Even if he was terrified that Obi-Wan’s expression would fall further, his voice would go quieter and he’d say something comforting - he always knew how.</p><p>“Is…” Cody closed his eyes for a moment. “Is Rex there?”</p><p>A frankly horrible moment of silence - and then, he felt a gentle hand wrap around his. </p><p>“Oh, Cody.” Obi-Wan was close to him, now, his breath warm against Cody’s cheek. There was a smile etched into his voice, and Cody dared open his eyes. “Yes. Yes, Rex is there. He’ll be, oh, he’ll be overjoyed to hear you, I’ll give you the comm when we get to the ship.”</p><p>Cody felt like the ground was swept out from underneath him a second time tonight as he searched Obi-Wan’s eyes for the slightest bit of possibility that he wasn’t telling the truth - but why on earth would he be lying about this? He found nothing.</p><p>Trying his best to level his voice, he asked, “How long?”</p><p>Obi-Wan reached up, tugged on a curl of Cody’s hair absent-mindedly. “Since the very beginning, I hear. Ahsoka broke his chip.”</p><p>Cody parted his lips and suddenly found that he had no words to speak, such overwhelming relief flooded him that it made him a little ashamed of himself. Rex, he mouthed voicelessly, <em>Rex</em>? He was alive, he was himself, barely having experienced the crushing loss of his sentience - if luck was on Cody’s side, he’d get to see him again, too. He glanced down, feeling a little like he could stand up and just run for the ship right now, and found a smile on his face. Rex, his little brother. <em>Vod’ika</em>. Himself.</p><p>“...Kriff,” he said quietly instead. </p><p>Obi-Wan nodded like that was the exact reaction he was expecting.</p><p>“Tano, she’s…” Cody shook his head, trying to summon his patience by changing the topic for now. “She’s bound to be <em>old</em> now, isn’t she?”</p><p>“Cody!” Obi-Wan let out a startled laugh. “She’s <em>twenty-four</em>! And a very bright young woman, if I say so myself.”</p><p>“Of course you do,” Cody muttered, adding, “Probably taller than you, too.”</p><p>Obi-Wan gaped at him, looking more offended than he probably would if Cody insulted his taste in teas. “Excuse me! The fact that my Padawans keep outgrowing me is a very sensitive topic for me.”</p><p>He looked like he was about to add to that, but cut himself off - it was like something died in his eyes. Cody didn’t miss the way he called Tano his Padawan. Maybe it had something to do with that.</p><p>“Ob’ika,” Cody murmured. “Y’alright?”</p><p>Obi-Wan shook his head, smiling a sad little smile. “I have… so many things to tell you, Cody. But not now. Let’s wait until we’re safe for the time being.”</p><p>“I’d say we’re pretty safe right now,” Cody prodded gently, leaning into him. “I’m good with a blaster, if you didn’t know.”</p><p>“Oh? News to me,” Obi-Wan chuckled.</p><p>Snapping them out of it, Zhade-Ran cleared her throat pointedly. “Hey! No funny business where there’s no shade to hide behind! I don’t know how you ran your battalion, Ben, but this isn’t it.”</p><p>“Just suffer in silence.” Boil elbowed her in the side. “Trust me, better this than the week-long pining you’ll be subjected to if they don’t get out of their system.”</p><p>Obi-Wan glanced his way with a look of strange curiosity on his face. “See,” he said, pretty clearly trying not to laugh. “See, this is the first time I hear complaints. Most of those didn’t reach me when I was their General, so I suppose Cody here was taking the brunt of it.” He knocked his shoulder against Cody’s affectionately. “And I am very sorry about that.”</p><p>“Actually,” Cody muttered, taking a dry slice of hard bread from Boil’s rations, just to keep himself busy. “There were few. I didn’t think people knew.”</p><p>“Most didn’t,” Boil informed them, feeling merciful. “But to those that did, it was pretty obvious.”</p><p>“Well, I’m not surprised you were one of the more observant ones.” Obi-Wan’s smile could melt durasteel if it were ever to be used as a weapon. “Or was it Waxer?”</p><p>“It was both of us.” Boil shrugged. “We were talking one night, he suddenly rolls over in his bunk and goes, ‘Holy shit, Boil, if Cody keeps giving Kenobi once-overs as soon as the man walks into a room thinking no one can see it, I’m deserting,’ and I realized I was not the only one about to lose it because our General, the Negotiator, pretty much had hearts plastered on his eyes every time he saw our Commander. It was like watching one of those horrible holomovies. It was <em>torture</em>.”</p><p>Cody most certainly did <em>not</em> choke on the last bite of the bread at Boil’s vivid descriptions. Zhade-Ran knocked her knuckles against his back with a shit-eating grin a few times.</p><p>“<em>Excuse me</em>,” Obi-Wan started, a confused grin on his face, but Taddea cut in.</p><p>“I am trying,” he managed, wheezing, “to <em>eat.</em> Can we please talk about blasters or something?”</p><p>“Yeah, before he hears something he’s too young to,” Zhade-Ran agreed, the grin going nowhere as she masterfully avoided getting smacked over the head by an orange hand.</p><p>Cody cleared his throat, took a breath, and, “Yeah, I vote blasters.”</p><p>“Boring,” Boil murmured. </p><p>“I’ll, uh, stand with Cody on this one.” Obi-Wan was pale enough for his complexion to tell the people around him everything they needed to know. Cody always liked to jokingly ask him if that was why he’d grown the beard.</p><p>To Obi-Wan’s mild surprise, Taddea and Cody actually got tangled in quite the discussion, both eager to draw the attention away from the previous topic. Obi-Wan wasn’t purposefully keeping up with the newest models, sure, but he knew enough, and how many types of Imperial state-of-the-art technology there were sounded a little bewildering, frankly.</p><p>Waiting until Taddea could launch himself into a longer monologue, he leaned toward Boil. “That’s all recent years?”</p><p>“Most of them this year,” Boil answered grimly. “They’re churning out new ones like clockwork. Good old deeces are a kriffing relic at this point.”</p><p>Obi-Wan hummed, mulling the thought over. “Keep that in mind, would you? The Rebellion would do great with a few more details on the newest Imperial technology.”</p><p>“Don’t sweat it, General, I could forget my own name again and still I’d remember those kriffing forms,” Boil said idly. Obi-Wan frowned at the rank, but didn’t mention it. He’d fall out of habit eventually.</p><p>“Your chips are gone,” he reminded. Boil turned to glance at him.</p><p>“Yeah. But they did enough.”</p><p>Obi-Wan bowed his head. “I’m sure.”</p><p>Cody and Taddea had quieted down, the latter having somehow draped himself over Zhade-Ran’s exasperated form. He was quite clearly drifting off when Cody looked on at Obi-Wan and Boil, unsure if he should ask what the conversation was all about.</p><p>Deciding against it, he only nodded to the spot next to him. “Come on. It’ll be dark after a while. Let’s get a few hours in.”</p><p>Obi-Wan stood up, settling down next to Cody, not before rolling his eyes at Boil, who wagged his finger at them strictly.</p><p>“Oh, don’t choke on it,” Cody advised, turning away from his brother in exasperation. “You’re getting the first watch.” Boil snorted at that, shrugging and standing to find a better spot to watch the group.</p><p>They lay down together, Cody and Obi-Wan, close enough to feel each other’s warmth, but – not touching. Cody blinked a few times, exhaustion blurring the corners of his vision.</p><p>“<em>Ni kar'tayli gar,</em>” Obi-Wan muttered to him, absent-mindedly, before closing his eyes. </p><p>Now, no matter what Boil thought of it, Cody sighed and wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan, tugging him to his chest carefully and ending up digging his face into Obi-Wan’s neck. Somewhere above, he felt Obi-Wan pressing a sleepy kiss to the top of his head.</p><p>“<em>Darasuum,</em>” Cody said, listening to the steady beat of Obi-Wan’s heart under his cheek. He more so felt his smile than saw it. “<em>Darasuum.</em>”<a href="#kar" id="karback" name="karback"><sup>4</sup></a></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Obi-Wan was right. K’aru was the opposite of crawling with Imperials. If anything, the locals almost shot them on sight, seeing Stormtrooper armour, before Obi-Wan lurched forward, raising his hands and making a bunch of rapid gestures. A few curt words later - well, more so hums of various intonations between Obi-Wan and the locals rather than words - they were allowed access.</p><p>“Don’t you have your ship here?” Cody muttered to Obi-Wan, leaning a little closer as they walked.</p><p>“I do,” he replied, scanning the surroundings as he navigated across the place easily, nodding to a few people as he went. “But anyone could’ve just killed me and taken my mask, you know. I don’t show my face around here. Most places. It’s better not to.”</p><p>Cody grimaced. “Point taken.” </p><p>There were no more distractions along the way until they finally made it to the ship. It wasn’t a fighter like the one Cody remembered Obi-Wan preferring, but it was a small enough transport to fit them. Theta-class, perhaps. The Rebellion seemed to have taken the amount of ex-Stormtroopers into account before Obi-Wan left.</p><p>There were two pilot seats - Obi-Wan took one, Zhade-Ran and Taddea decidedly stuffed themselves into the back, and Boil just gestured for Cody to take the co-pilot’s, his best shit-eating grin on full display as he grabbed onto the hanging strap.</p><p>Making a mockery of his expression, Cody sat down in the other chair. He wasn’t exactly complaining, but Boil <em>was</em> being an asshole about it. </p><p>“Your eyes will get stuck that way,” Obi-Wan told him pleasantly as the ship shuddered, powered on and rose straight up slowly. He’d put the mask on the side of the mode controls where there weren’t buttons that he could click on accident. “Oh, don’t give me that look.”</p><p>Technically, Obi-Wan was looking out the front and couldn’t see what Cody was actually doing, but that had never stopped him before.</p><p>“What’s our ETA?” Cody asked instead, dropping the mime act. Obi-Wan hummed, leaning forward to look at the screen in the panel.</p><p>“About half an hour in hyperspace, they’re in this sector. I’ll set a route. Oh,” he pointed to Cody’s side, “would you be a dear and pull that for me?”</p><p>It was a lever, marked vivid red. Cody did, and there was a short bump against something in the ship.</p><p>“Engages the rings,” Obi-Wan explained. Cody grinned, shaking his head.</p><p>“Yeah, I could tell. Can’t afford a built-in module?”</p><p>“Let’s just say the Empire cut funding,” Obi-Wan told him, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Here we go.”  </p><p>The drop-in was instantaneous, nearly impossible to sense if not for the stretch and quick disappearance of stars to the sides of the ship. A moment passed, and they were barrelling through hyperspace.</p><p>“Settle in,” Obi-Wan suggested, leaning back a little bit. “It’ll be a minute, so - oh, that can’t be comfortable.”</p><p>Taddea had fallen asleep, again, on Zhade-Ran’s shoulder. If he was a cadet in the GAR, they probably would’ve dubbed him something like Tooka. He looked the part.</p><p>“He’s had worse,” Zhade-Ran assured, finding Obi-Wan with a glance. “Say, Jedi. Ben. I wanted to talk.”</p><p>“Please do.” His hands barely twitched.</p><p>“There are more Stormtroopers,” she said, quietly. Obi-Wan looked at her over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “In the Imperial Army. Like us. That would prefer to be - well, fighting the good fight. Or not be fighting for the Empire, at least.”</p><p>“Of course.” Obi-Wan turned back to the control panel. “We’re investigating all those that try to contact us. For those that lie low, we can do nothing right now, unfortunately.”</p><p>“You ever tried infiltration missions?” </p><p>She had a sharp smile on her face, if small. Taddea shifted on her shoulder, muttering something into the bent pauldron. </p><p>“Well, of course. Mostly for information, however. Smaller scale operations aren’t very common.” Obi-Wan sounded interested. “Are you proposing something?”</p><p>“Isn’t it obvious?” She leaned forward a bit, as not to dislodge Taddea, but just enough to focus her eyes on the side of Obi-Wan’s face. “We didn’t leave a single Imperial back in that envoy, nobody’s found out that me and Taddea are gone. You clones, they’ll presume you to be dead, it’s…” She hesitated for a moment. “It’s often that you do, on those kinds of missions. Anything goes wrong, you’re closest to the fire, and, well.” She shrugged. </p><p>Cody saw Obi-Wan’s hands tighten on the controls, enough so the knuckles were paling, a freckle here and there standing out like a fleck of blood on his hands. “Truly.” His voice was surprisingly even for the chill of the frown on his face. Cody stood up, stepped around the co-pilot’s chair, adjusted it so it was facing Obi-Wan and dropped down next to him, gently brushing against his arm as he went. Obi-Wan gave him a tense smile.</p><p>“What I’m saying is, if this goes right and you people decide we’re fit for your schemes…” Zhade-Ran smiled, wrapping an arm around Taddea’s shoulders, brushing his lekku out of the way. “Don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m probably only good for the field, honestly. We can try and make something of this. I’d certainly be willing to discuss.”</p><p>She remembered her own uncertainty and cowardice - yes, she was far enough away from that now to recognize it, she’d been a coward, complacent in the Empire’s ways of systematic genocide, cruel practices, outright failure of leading a competent army. She was too caught up in trying to survive which had been so difficult her entire life that she failed to see what she was doing, she failed to see that she was cutting down people that had never wanted war. People that had never wished for anything but peace. Perhaps there was honour in helping such people, perhaps there was repentance for the years of nothing but murder.</p><p>And now that she realized she was one of them, she would do anything to change what was happening. If not for herself - she did not yet know if she deserved forgiveness - then for the Galaxy that had raised her, not the Empire, her father’s memory, and Taddea. </p><p>It came to her like a lightning from clear sky. She still could not recall vividly the Riduurok, the Remembrances, but a phrase rose from memory, muttered in so many different ways across so many different people, children and adults alike, and she turned to look at Taddea and decided that if he ever wanted to, if he was ever willing - </p><p>
  <em>Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'vod.</em>
</p><p>She smiled, pressing her forehead against the top of his head.<a href="#ni" id="niback" name="niback"><sup>5</sup></a></p><p>Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “That’s not a bad idea,” he agreed. “You knew Stormtroopers that wanted to desert?”</p><p>“When me and Tadd’ika started considering it, I began noticing patterns.” Zhade-Ran shrugged. “After a good bit, it became easier to tell which Stormtroopers were having doubts about what they were doing, and which ones were entirely engrossed in the ordeal. I approached a few. Carefully. Never confessed first, but most of them were clearly planning to desert sooner or later. A few even told me as such. Maybe they could see the same thing I did.” She shrugged. “The truth stands. It’s entirely possible to move at least a good few thousand Stormtroopers, as a rough estimate, out of the Empire and into the Rebellion. Not a giant loss for the Empire in terms of numbers, but some of the intelligence those guys have racked up over the years is unreal.”</p><p>“That sounds like something to be carefully considered.” Obi-Wan nodded. “I’ll bring it up with the others. Speaking of which - we’re dropping out of hyperspace soon.”</p><p>“Rebel base?” Boil asked. Obi-Wan chuckled.</p><p>“Not quite. A carrier ship. You’ll be assessed - your chips checked,” he nodded toward Cody and Boil, “if there are any functional remains, they’ll be removed cleanly.”</p><p>Cody honestly breathed a sigh of relief. His chip, to his knowledge, had been shattered beyond repair (and not without reason; he took one hell of a hit back there), but it was still going to be nice to have insurance that he’s not just going to revert one day and lurch at Obi-Wan over breakfast or something.</p><p>Good gods, thinking about something as trivial as eating breakfast with Obi-Wan was making him feel all mushy. Something told him this was going to be a problem, but, honestly, he just didn’t see it.</p><p>The ship shuddered and slowed, the beams of hyperspace dissipating and fading to the sides of the vessel, and a large Imperial carrier emerged in front of them. Obi-Wan shook his head, never too fond of the process of seeing something so gargantuan seemingly appear out of nowhere. It was an irrational source of nervousness, and something Cody had always found just a tad amusing. Never mentioned it out loud, though. Obi-Wan had worse dirt on him.</p><p>“Back to the Imps?” Boil commented, chuckling.</p><p>“I don’t need to tell you that the Rebellion hijacked that, do I?” Obi-Wan smiled, turning to look at him. “One of our proudest projects. Even this ship is Imperial, technically. The designations match as well, just in case we meet an Imp delegation out there.”</p><p>He shifted closer as the tractor beam drew them in. Obi-Wan steadied the ship and let his hands slide down the wheel, resting at the base as he watched them approaching the hangar. His smile widened when Cody stood up and leaned down to him, breath fanning over his hair. </p><p>“What do we do once we’re there?” he muttered. “After it’s over, I mean. Chip-free and all that.”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked up at him and turned the chair slightly so they’d be obscured from the view of others. Lifting himself a bit, he brushed his thumb against Cody’s chin, pulling him down further. </p><p>Kissing him on the cheek softly, he offered, “Stay with me?” </p><p>Cody turned his head and pressed their foreheads together again, watching as Obi-Wan’s eyes fluttered closed. As if he was ever going to refuse an offer like that.</p><p>Still, Cody cupped his face and, making him laugh a little, kissed the very tip of his nose, then the corner of his lips. </p><p>“Always, cyare<em>,</em>” he promised before leaning back again.</p><p>Light flooded the cockpit, the brightness of the corridor a different gray than it always seemed to be in the Empire - this one leaned a bit toward an odd warmth; perhaps it was also the dozens of people clad in various colours making their way around - mostly orange, Rebellion pilots. So it all looked the littlest bit more welcoming, the seas of white sinking behind them, lost to memory, shoved and sealed away in the farthest crevices of their minds.</p><p>Obi-Wan took the controls again and landed them neatly; the ship still shuddered just before it hummed to a silence. Perhaps it had gotten damaged on Irnham somehow - but there were already mechanics around it, muttering things they could barely make out from within. </p><p>“We’re here,” Obi-Wan said, needlessly, and waved warmly to someone waiting for them on the ground. It was the being that had first spoken to them, probably, the mask off their face now. They looked - at least mildly pleasant, raising their hand to salute them with two fingers, a soft mockery of the gesture.</p><p>Boil grinned, stepping up to Cody and squinting at the people down there. “You think we’re going to be alright?” he muttered to Cody. </p><p>Cody glanced back, to Taddea, who was waking from his short rest with a yawn, to Zhade-Ran, who was doing her best to appear entirely unamused by her brother’s tendency to fall asleep on her, to Boil himself, eyes glimmering like he already knew the answer. And to Obi-Wan, who had stood up and put a hand on his shoulder, gently ushering them all toward the doors, inclining his head toward the person waiting for them but still having the time to smile at Cody like he was seeing him for the first time again.</p><p>“Yeah,” Cody told Boil just before the doors opened, letting in more of that odd, welcoming light. “Yeah, vod. I think we’ll be just fine.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a id="dini" name="dini"></a>1. “Dini’la Jetii’ka” – “Crazy little Jedi.” <a href="#diniback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="dra" name="dra"></a>2. "Draar ner jahaati tug'yc. Gar ru'dinui ner gar'miit." - "Never lie to me again. You gave me your word."<a href="#draback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="ne" name="ne"></a>3. “Ni ne’jahati, a cabuor’ni.” - “I’m not lying, I’m protecting myself.” <a href="#neback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="kar" name="kar"></a>4. "Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum." - "I love you."<a href="#karback">Back to text</a><br/><a id="ni" name="ni"></a>5. “Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'vod.” – “I know your name as my brother”, an adoption vow modified to mean the acceptance of a sibling. <a href="#niback">Back to text</a><br/>oookay so that concludes it ! i’ll drop in the next one in the series as soon as i’m done editing, it’s just gonna be the obi-wan side of things mostly with a few added moments. thank you so very much for reading, the kind response to this fic blew me away!! i hope i ended this alright, and – happy new year! may 2021 be a blissful year, and if not, may we drag it there with our claws and fangs. thank you for checking out the fic, again!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>